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6.6 Don’t use technical / sector vocabulary that your readers
may not be familiar with
The author of S1 is a computer scientist. She uses a word that a social scientist or
psychologist might be familiar with, but not a fellow computer scientist. Can you
spot the word?

S1 * People in smart environments do not move randomly – their mobility is affected by (i)
the kinds of social-relationships they are involved in, and (ii) their personal activities.

Concerning the first aspect, the homophily among humans introduces additional features
in the way people (and hence devices) in a mobile social network move and behave.
If your language does not derive from Greek or Latin, then you are unlikely to be
familiar with the term homophily . Homophily indicates the tendency to bond with
people who are similar to us. The author has probably used it as the concept it refers
to is the kinds of social-relationships people are involved in, which she has already
mentioned in the previous sentence. But if the reader doesn’t know the meaning of
homophily then he/she will not understand that the author is merely using a syn-
onym. The best solution is to replace the ‘technical’ word with an explanation.

S2 … and (ii) their personal activities. The tendency of individuals to associate and bond with
similar people (i) introduces additional features in the way people …

Using the technique in S2 also means that you may be able to avoid generic phrases
such as concerning the fi rst aspect .

6.7 Be as precise as possible

If possible, aim at precision. Instead of saying something happened in a number of
cases , be more exact: this happened in 11 cases . If you think that stating the exact
number is not important or you do not have the exact number available, then try to
use a concise expression.

short long
about of the order of
few few in number
many a high percentage of
many a large proportion of
most vast majority of
never never at any time
several a good number of
some / - a number of