You’ve just read a sentence three times and still can’t grasp its meaning. In fields ranging from education and the social sciences to business and literary criticism, dense prose alienates readers and buries ideas as readers skip hard-to-parse passages. That’s where a good copyediting service steps in—to turn complex or jargon-heavy writing into readable prose without losing the nuances of an author’s message.

When you hire a copyeditor, their goal is to make meaning understandable, bridging the gap between experts and general readers by cutting through academic and professional jargon. Copyeditors adopt different strategies to simplify language while keeping complex material accessible, accurate, and engaging—all without diluting the original meaning.

Why Jargon Hurts Readers

Jargon shows up everywhere, from academic journal articles to business reports, and eliminating it is essential for various reasons:

Readers skim much more today, especially when reading online. The average time spent reading news articles one thousand words or longer ranges from 123 seconds, or just over two minutes, compared with 57 seconds for shorter pieces, according to a Pew Research Center study. The study also noted that the actual engaged time varies significantly, depending on how the reader got to the article, whether it is midday or evening, and what the topic covers. These are rough guidelines and reading time also depends on the subject, the publication, and the audience. But what these figures do show is that you have little time to hold readers’ interest—if your writing is full of inaccessible jargon, readers will scroll on or skip to another page.

Reading habits have evolved. Reading for pleasure has declined in the US according to an analysis of data from the American Time Use Survey published in iScience. Researchers at University College London and the University of Florida found that of about 236,270 Americans, the share of those who read for pleasure on an average day fell from a peak of 28 percent in 2004 to about 16 percent in 2023, a relative decrease of around 3 percent per year. (That’s roughly 40 percent over two decades). Meanwhile, figures for Americans gaming, watching shows, or using a computer for personal interest held steady at about 79 percent, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the face of changing reading habits, it is crucial that writing be clear and jargon-free.

Academic writing often errs on the side of verbosity. Sentences can drag on, leaving the reader wondering what the point is or, even worse, how a paragraph relates to the overall theme of the piece.

The Art of Clarity: Before and After

Every profession develops its own shorthand and jargon-heavy writing abounds in every discipline. Fields overstuffed with dense prose include education and academia, business and management, the social sciences and psychology, law and public policy, and literary criticism and philosophy. Here are some examples of insider terms across different fields—and what they mean in plain English.

In education:

• Formative assessment: checking to see if students understand the lesson
• Pedagogy: the method and practice of teaching

In business and management:

• Paradigm shift: a fundamental change in how the company thinks
• Value proposition: what makes a product or service attractive to customers

In the social sciences, especially psychology:

• Heuristics: a mental shortcut or rule of thumb
• Operant conditioning: learning facilitated by rewards and punishments

In law and public policy:

• Regulatory capture: when an agency meant to protect the public instead serves the interests of the industry it is meant to regulate
• Stare decisis: using earlier court rulings as a guide for future rulings

In art, literary criticism, or philosophy:

•  Mimesis: the representation or imitation of reality in art or literature
• Deconstruction: analyzing texts to show contradictions and multiple meanings

Practical Steps to Improve Readability

Copyeditors rely on several key methods to simplify dense language. Here are some of their strategies:

1. Clarify without oversimplifying. One major challenge writers face is making complex ideas accessible to general readers. As experts, authors often write long, hard-to-understand sentences to connect their ideas. In order to make sure they retain essential meaning, copyeditors flag authors, querying them about the intended meaning of a sentence. Skillful copyeditors often divide lengthy sentences into smaller, readily understandable concepts, making them easier for readers to grasp. By breaking up difficult passages, copyeditors help authors better convey the complexity of their ideas without oversimplifying them.
2. Reshape sentence structure. Writing that is convoluted can make readers tune out or skip a passage entirely. To resolve this problem, copyeditors rephrase sentences or use punctuation to add much-needed pauses that help to keep readers’ attention on the page. They will also suggest varying sentence length throughout a piece to improve its rhythm and readability. A skilled copyeditor will make each sentence feel so smooth and natural that it doesn’t feel copyedited. 
3. Improve transitions and flow. A well-organized, jargon-free piece with smooth transitions carries readers from one idea to the next without pause. Strong transitions are more effective when they are not buried in dense prose, allowing ideas to flow and connect seamlessly.
4. Preserve the author’s voice and authenticity. Professional copyediting isn’t only about rewriting to tighten writing, eliminate jargon, and correct grammar and punctuation. It also involves strengthening the author’s voice. This is particularly true when editing memoirs or personal essays where emotions matter. A copyeditor ensures that grammar, usage, and formatting are correct and trims redundancies, all while retaining the author’s distinctive style.
5. Keep a target reader in mind. Knowing the difference between the base knowledge of a general reader and an expert is fundamental to shaping the tone of a narrative. For a more general audience, copyeditors might suggest weaving in more explanations to help readers better understand a complex subject. This may be unnecessary for a text aimed at specialists.

Copyeditors don’t just correct mechanical errors—they make the text accessible. As ideas grow increasingly complex, especially in a world flooded with AI-generated writing, clarity becomes more vital than ever. Professional copyeditors are the unsung heroes of the writing process. They don’t just fix commas; through jargon-free editing, they rescue ideas from obscurity and turn dense writing into clear, engaging prose.