Can You Explain It Without Jargon?

Introduction

Plain-English teaching is a simple thinking test: take an idea you believe you understand, explain it clearly to someone outside the field, and watch where your explanation breaks. If you can only repeat labels, quote definitions, or lean on specialist language, you may recognise the idea without yet understanding it. The test matters because good thinking is not just having the right answer; it is being able to show how the answer works, what it depends on, and where it stops applying.

This is often associated with the “Feynman technique”, but the practical value is broader than one famous scientist. It draws on several well-supported findings: people often overestimate how well they understand mechanisms until asked to explain them; retrieval and self-explanation can strengthen learning; and teach-back methods in healthcare show how asking someone to explain information in their own words reveals misunderstanding more reliably than asking “do you understand?”[PMC+2andymatuschak.org]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govby L Rozenblit · 2002 · Cited by 1504 — We argue here that people's limited knowledge and their misleading intuitive epistemology comb…

Teach-back as a test of understanding

The core move is not performance. It is diagnosis. Instead of asking, “Could I recognise this idea on a page?”, ask, “Could I explain it to a bright beginner without hiding behind vocabulary?” That shift exposes the difference between stored wording and usable understanding.

A good teach-back test has four parts. First, choose one narrow idea: not “economics”, but “why price caps can create shortages”; not “machine learning”, but “why overfitting makes a model perform well in training and badly later”. Second, explain it aloud or in writing for a specific non-specialist audience. Third, remove unnecessary jargon, or define the unavoidable terms in everyday language. Fourth, mark every place where you hesitate, use a vague word, skip a causal step, or say “it just means…” without being able to show how.

Healthcare uses a related method in a high-stakes setting. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality describes teach-back as asking patients to state, in their own words, what they need to know or do; if a misunderstanding appears, the clinician clarifies and checks again. The point is not to test the patient’s intelligence, but to test whether the explanation worked. That principle transfers well to analytical thinking: if your audience cannot teach your idea back, your explanation may be unclear; if you cannot teach it forward, your own grasp may be incomplete.[AHRQ]ahrq.govOpen source on ahrq.gov.

The strongest version of the exercise treats confusion as useful evidence. When you cannot explain why one step follows another, you have found a learning target. When your listener asks a basic question that you cannot answer, they have not derailed the exercise; they have located the edge of your understanding.

Why plain language reveals false confidence

Plain English is not a cosmetic style choice. It removes a common hiding place. Technical words can be useful shorthand among experts, but they can also let a person feel fluent while leaving the mechanism unclear. Richard Feynman’s famous warning in his 1974 Caltech address was that “you must not fool yourself”, and his broader teaching style repeatedly distinguished knowing the name of something from knowing what is going on.[calteches.library.caltech.edu]calteches.library.caltech.eduOpen source on caltech.edu.

Cognitive science gives this habit a sharper name: the illusion of explanatory depth. In the classic work by Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil, people tended to believe they understood everyday mechanisms more deeply than they did, until they were asked to explain them in detail. The illusion was especially strong for explanatory knowledge: people could feel that they understood how something worked because they had a familiar mental label for it, not because they could actually describe the causal chain.[PMC]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govby L Rozenblit · 2002 · Cited by 1504 — We argue here that people's limited knowledge and their misleading intuitive epistemology comb…

This is why the plain-English test is stricter than a quiz on terms. A person can define “inflation”, “cognitive bias”, “compound interest”, “natural selection”, or “correlation” and still fail to explain how the idea behaves in a real case. Plain language forces the hidden work into view:

• Causal gaps: “X affects Y” becomes “What exactly changes first, and what happens next?”
• Empty abstractions: “It optimises outcomes” becomes “What is being improved, for whom, and at what cost?”
• Borrowed authority: “Studies show…” becomes “What did the study compare, and what would count as a weaker finding?”
• False precision: “It is statistically significant” becomes “How big was the effect, and does it matter in practice?”
• Category confusion: “It is biased” becomes “Biased in which direction, compared with what standard?”

The test is demanding because plainness does not mean dumbing down. It means preserving the real structure of the idea while removing avoidable obstacles. That is why plain-language guidance from public-sector and usability organisations emphasises audience, structure, active wording, familiar terms, and testing whether readers can actually use the information.[Digital.gov+2Nielsen Norman Group]digital.govPlain language guide seriesPlain language guide series

The thinking mechanisms behind the method

Plain-English teaching works because it combines several mental actions that are easy to avoid during passive study.

First, it requires retrieval. You have to bring the idea out of memory rather than simply recognise it when someone else presents it. Retrieval practice research shows that recalling information can support longer-term learning more effectively than simply rereading, especially when the task requires effort rather than easy recognition.[Center for Teaching and Learning]ctl.wustl.eduOpen source on wustl.edu.

Second, it requires self-explanation. When you explain an idea, you must connect steps, supply missing links, and notice contradictions. A classic study by Michelene Chi and colleagues found that prompting students to self-explain while reading a passage improved understanding compared with rereading, and later reviews have treated self-explanation as a useful, though design-sensitive, learning strategy.[andymatuschak.org]andymatuschak.orgChi et al 1994 Eliciting self explanations improves understandingEliciting Self-Explanations Improves Understandingby MTH CHI · 1994 · Cited by 4299 — This study extends that finding, showing that self…

Third, it creates a mild version of learning by teaching. Research on learning by teaching and the protégé effect suggests that preparing to teach can change how learners process material: they organise it more carefully, anticipate questions, and become more aware of what a learner would need. The evidence is not a magic guarantee; studies also find that benefits depend on interaction, feedback, and task design. But the basic lesson is practical: teaching forces organisation, and organisation reveals gaps.[PMC+2PMC]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govOpen source on nih.gov.

Finally, the method improves metacognition, the ability to judge your own understanding. Many people mistake ease for mastery: a familiar term feels known, a fluent article feels absorbed, a highlighted page feels learned. Teaching in plain English replaces that feeling with a more concrete signal: Can you reconstruct the idea, make it intelligible, answer basic questions, and repair the explanation when it fails?

How to run a plain-English teaching test

A useful version can take ten minutes. The goal is not to produce a perfect lecture, but to create a fast, honest check of understanding.

The most important rule is to keep the listener’s confusion separate from blame. In formal teach-back, the check is framed as a test of the explanation rather than a test of the patient. The same stance keeps the thinking exercise honest: the purpose is not to prove that you are clever, but to find out whether the idea survives contact with another mind.[The Health Literacy Place]healthliteracyplace.org.ukOpen source on healthliteracyplace.org.uk.

Where confusion appears first

The first cracks usually appear in predictable places. These are the points where recognition often masquerades as understanding.

Definitions that do no work. A definition may be accurate but inert. Someone might say, “Opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative,” yet struggle to use it when choosing between two jobs. A plain-English test asks for the decision version: “When you choose one option, what exactly are you giving up?”

Mechanisms hidden inside nouns. Phrases such as “market forces”, “social pressure”, “algorithmic bias”, “institutional failure”, or “cognitive load” can compress many steps into one label. The test asks you to unfold the noun: who does what, what changes, and why?

Examples that only fit the easy case. If your explanation works only for the example you memorised, you may not understand the principle. A strong test changes the example slightly. If you can explain compound interest for savings but not debt, or confirmation bias in politics but not in your own workplace, the idea is not yet portable.

Analogies that overreach. Analogies help beginners, but they can also smuggle in false similarities. Teaching plainly means saying where the analogy breaks. For example, describing memory as a “filing cabinet” may help at first, but it can mislead if it suggests memories are stored unchanged and simply retrieved later.

Jargon that protects status. In workplaces and academic settings, specialist language can signal belonging. That is not always bad; expert communities need precise terms. The danger is using those terms before the underlying distinction is clear. Plain English does not ban technical vocabulary. It makes technical vocabulary earn its place.

What good plain-language explanation looks like

A plain explanation is not merely shorter. It is better organised around the learner’s question. Usability and public-content guidance repeatedly returns to the same practical principles: write for the audience, put important information early, use familiar words where possible, keep sentences direct, and test whether people can understand and act on the message.[Digital.gov+2GOV.UK]digital.govPlain language guide seriesPlain language guide series

A weak explanation of overfitting might say:

“Overfitting occurs when a model captures noise rather than generalisable signal, reducing out-of-sample performance.”

That sentence may be acceptable among specialists, but it is a poor thinking test because the words can be repeated without much understanding. A stronger plain-English version would be:

“Overfitting is like memorising the answers to last year’s exam instead of learning the subject. The model performs well on the examples it has already seen, but it fails when the new examples are a bit different.”

The second version is not complete, but it exposes the structure: training examples, future examples, surface success, poor transfer. It also invites useful follow-up questions: How do we detect overfitting? Why does a more complex model overfit more easily? What counts as “new” data? Those questions show where the next layer of understanding should go.

The same pattern works outside technical subjects. “A conflict of interest is a situation where someone’s judgement may be pulled away from the public, client, or organisational interest by a private benefit.” That is clearer than merely saying “a conflict of interest compromises objectivity”, because it names the pull, the judgement, and the affected party.

Mistakes that make the test too easy

The exercise fails when it becomes a performance of simplicity rather than a test of thinking.

One common mistake is oversimplifying until the claim becomes false. Plain English should not remove the conditions that make the idea true. “Stress is bad for performance” is simpler than the reality; a more careful explanation might say that high stress can impair attention and decision-making, especially when the task is complex, unfamiliar, or emotionally loaded.

Another mistake is explaining only to yourself. A private explanation is useful, but a real listener adds pressure. They notice leaps you glide over. They ask ordinary questions that experts forget to ask. That is why interactive teaching can matter: research on learning by teaching suggests that the benefits vary, and interaction is one plausible reason some teaching tasks work better than others.[PMC]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govOpen source on nih.gov.

A third mistake is using a child as the imagined audience for every topic. The popular shorthand “explain it to a child” can help remove jargon, but many real ideas require adult context. A better target is “an intelligent outsider”: someone capable of reasoning, but not yet familiar with the field’s vocabulary.

A fourth mistake is treating fluency as proof. Some people are verbally agile enough to sound clear while remaining shallow. The safeguard is to add checks: ask for an example, a counterexample, a boundary condition, a prediction, and a “what would change your mind?” answer. Plain language reveals many gaps, but it works best when paired with evidence and feedback.

Using it to improve analytical skill

Plain-English teaching is most useful when it becomes a regular habit at the point where thinking usually stays private. Before presenting a recommendation, explain the reasoning to a non-specialist. Before accepting a theory, teach its mechanism and its limits. Before using a technical term in a meeting, write the sentence you would use if that term were banned.

For analytical work, three prompts are especially powerful:

The method also improves discussion. When people disagree, asking each side to explain the other side’s mechanism in plain English can lower the temperature and reveal whether the disagreement is about facts, values, definitions, predictions, or trade-offs. Research on the illusion of understanding in policy and political judgement has found that asking people to explain mechanisms can reduce overconfidence in some contexts, because the act of explanation reveals how much is assumed rather than known.[The Decision Lab]thedecisionlab.comOpen source on thedecisionlab.com.

The final payoff is intellectual humility without passivity. Plain-English teaching does not tell you to doubt everything. It gives you a practical way to doubt precisely: not “I know nothing”, but “I know the label, I know the example, I do not yet know the mechanism”, or “I can explain the main idea, but not the exception”. That kind of self-diagnosis is one of the most useful habits in better thinking, because it turns confusion from an embarrassment into a map.

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Further Reading

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Make It Stick

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Endnotes

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2. Source: andymatuschak.org
Title: Chi et al 1994 Eliciting self explanations improves understanding
Link:https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Chi%20et%20al%20-%201994%20-%20Eliciting%20self-explanations%20improves%20understanding.pdf

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Additional References

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