Gloss · Guides · How to explain anything simply
Guide
How to explain anything simply.
Explaining simply isn’t dumbing down. It is doing the work so your listener doesn’t have to. Here is a method that works for a word, a contract or an idea.
Start with what it’s for
Before you say what something is, say why it matters to the person in front of you. “This clause decides who pays if the boiler breaks” earns attention that “This is the maintenance provision” never will.
Find the one sentence
If you could keep only one sentence, which would it be? That is your plain explanation; everything else is detail. In Gloss this is the Plain style: one sentence, said once, clearly.
Use words shorter than the thing
The rule behind the Like I’m 5 style is simple: never use a long word to explain a long word. Ubiquitous means found everywhere, not omnipresent. If your explanation needs a dictionary, it isn’t one yet.
Give a picture
An example or a comparison does what a definition can’t. Liminal is an airport at 3 a.m.; sonder is a thousand lit windows at night. The Metaphor style exists because people remember pictures.
One idea at a time
Break the thing into steps and give them in order, one per sentence. If you hear yourself saying “and also” three times, you are carrying too much at once.
Check it on a real person
Explain it to someone who doesn’t know the subject and watch their face. Where they look lost, you skipped a step. The method is often credited to the physicist Richard Feynman, who was famous for making hard physics plain.
Then add the precision
Simple first, exact second. Once your listener has the picture, give them the right term and the nuance, because now they have somewhere to put it. The Formal style is the last step, not the first.
Plain English for documents
For leases, contracts and letters, rewrite each sentence as who does what: “The tenant shall be responsible for…” becomes “You pay for…”. Gloss’s Paste does this a clause at a time. For speaking, the same habits are in how to be more articulate.
Questions people ask
How do you explain something complicated in simple terms?
Start with what it is for, find the one sentence that says what it is, use words shorter than the thing, give one picture, and check on a real person whether they can say it back.
What is the Feynman technique?
Explaining an idea as if to a child, noticing where you get stuck, and going back to the source for exactly that part. It works because the stuck places are the parts you did not understand.
Is explaining simply the same as dumbing down?
No. Dumbing down removes the idea; explaining simply removes the obstacles to it. The test is whether the precise version can be added back afterwards without contradiction.
How does Gloss explain words simply?
Each word is written six ways from one anchored meaning; the Plain style says it once in everyday words, Like I’m 5 uses no long words to explain the long word, and the sentence comes before the definition.
Keep reading
How to be more articulate · How to read hard books without stopping at every word · Dictionary, thesaurus or glossary: which one you actually need · All guides