Is your science being ignored? The power of plain language in technical communication
Bethany Lines | July 3, 2026
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You and your team do complex, vital work. But how can it have an impact if people can’t understand it? Technical writing takes its own kind of expertise, often using plain language principles to translate complexity for a wider audience. And now a new plain language standard provides comprehensive guidelines for science writers to up their game.
Technical writing is clear, precise, and structured writing that aims to communicate a complex or specialist subject to a particular audience. Good technical writing makes your science understandable to readers who may not have your level of expertise.
Science writing or scientific writing — what’s the difference?
When you write about science for a non-specialist audience, it’s called science writing. This type of writing aims to break down technical scientific knowledge so that a wider audience can access it. So it’s a form of technical writing.
Science writing is entirely different to ‘scientific writing’, which is writing by scientists for people who share their specialist knowledge. Scientific writing is what you find in science journals and academic articles.
Science writing now has its own standard
The goal for technical and science writing is for a wide audience to understand it. Plain language helps to achieve this goal. Reader-friendly structure, simple sentences, and familiar word choice all help translate specialist knowledge into a form more people can understand and use.
In May, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released Part 3 of its Plain Language Standard all about science writing. Marking the release of the new standard, International Plain Language Federation committee chair Gael Spivak emphasised the importance of recognising ‘a wide range of backgrounds’ when communicating science to the public.
Because of this, science authors need to adapt scientific language and knowledge so that they provide their intended readers with relevant information they can easily find, understand, and use.
Accuracy is key as readers turn to AI for answers
Using plain, familiar language in science writing helps people understand and access scientific information, while maintaining scientific accuracy. In the age of AI, accuracy and understanding are particularly important. If your reader doesn’t understand your writing, they might use AI to summarise or explain it in a different way. And AI might get it wrong.
AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude often summarise science reports incorrectly. They have limitations in their training data, and they try to simplify information. This means that they may draw overly broad conclusions and produce exaggerated claims that don’t reflect the study’s actual findings.
Writing clearly and plainly increases your chance of being understood. It ensures your reader learns what you want them to learn, not what AI thinks they want to know.
Understanding builds trust and improves decision-making
Presenting information clearly builds trust and engagement, compared with hiding it behind complex technical language and jargon. Communicating science in plain language helps people make better evidence-based decisions, and can help to combat misinformation.
People find it hard to trust information they don’t understand. Using familiar language and real-world examples helps with understanding. Plain language brings people into the science rather than making them feel separate from it.
Avoiding the curse of knowledge
Science writing is all about meeting your reader at their level, without overestimating or underestimating their level of existing knowledge.
A common barrier in science communication is ‘the curse of knowledge’ — a cognitive bias where, once we’ve learnt something, we can’t imagine not knowing it. Once we lose touch with that layperson’s understanding, we tend to assume our audience understands more than they actually do. The thought that ‘I know this, so everyone else must already know it too’ also influences what we include and how we write it.
This misalignment doesn’t just apply to writing intended for the public. It can affect internal communications with your team, too, and lead to misunderstandings and delays. So, making your technical writing plain helps in all areas of science communication — inside your organisation and outside too. Everyone benefits when science is communicated well.
Connect with the author of this blog, Bethany Lines, on LinkedIn
Want to improve your technical writing skills?
Our Technical Writing workshop will help you to structure your writing and communicate important information in plain language. Even if you’ve been writing technical or science content for years, this workshop will get you thinking differently:
If you have done academic writing in the past, the technical writing workshop will flip your way of thinking.
Tomoyo G, Stats NZ
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Check your technical writing against Write’s Plain Language Standard
The Write Plain Language Standard is complementary to the ISO standard, and it’s free! Use our checklist to make sure you’re writing for your audience and your purpose and content are clear.
