Write for your learners

Word choice and vocabulary level should reflect the average schooling of your learners. Yes, many people who didn't graduate from high school are brilliant, and many people with college degrees are not. But if you pitch your vocabulary too high, you're just making it harder for your learners to actually use the thing you're trying to teach them because now they either have to stop every five minutes and look up a new word, forgetting everything else they just read, or they skip it and *hope* that they either get the gist or it wasn't important.

The cognitive effort they spend decoding your language is effort they're not spending on learning the content. That's extra cognitive load.

Some ways this shows up:

"Utilize" when "use" works fine

"Prior to commencing the procedure" instead of "Before you start"

Acronyms and jargon that your SME uses but your new hires have never seen

Sentences with three clauses and a semicolon when two short sentences would do

Passive voice everywhere ("The form should be completed by the employee" vs. "Fill out the form")

A few things I try to do:

Know who you're writing for. Really think about the needs of your learners. What's their typical reading level? (If you're not sure, shoot for an 8th grade reading level.) Are they working in their first language or their third? Are they reading on a laptop at their desk or a phone between tasks?

Use the words your learners actually use. If the job calls for specific technical terms, teach them, but define them the first time they appear and use them consistently.

Run a readability check. Tools like the Hemingway Editor or the readability stats in Word aren't perfect, but they'll flag sentences that could be rewritten.

Read it out loud. If it's clunky, rewrite it. Ask someone who resembles your learners to look it over, and take their advice.

Writing for your learners doesn't mean talking down to them. You can explain complex concepts in plain words. Nobody has ever said, "I wish this training was more confusing."