On clear, accessible information (and a bit about me)
Flowery introduction
I’ve thought about several ways I could introduce myself, but none of them are all encapsulating. They can’t be! How can I (how can anyone?) shrink all of me (themselves) into a text? At best you get a glimpse. Just like the light that behaves in a wave, I have range, crests and falls. Just like a wave sometimes I can be more energetic and at times more introspective (surely the light can be introspective too? (jk)). When read, I condense into a single spot on the wall, a single text on your screen, but with repetition, eventually the dots will start to paint the wave, the interference pattern of what ends up painting the picture of me. That is to say, I’m happy to be here, and I hope I have you will read me beyond today.
Actual introduction
The flowery introduction has some science-y references (which are cool!), but starting right now you can relax back into your seat and grab a tea. Today I think I’d like to share a bit about what feels like, at least to me, a less uptight topic: communication. Particularly, what can make people (hello, I’m people!) put down a book they’d otherwise really like to read. I’ll give an example, give two concise tips, re-work the example text and then give some closing commentary.
The scene
Today I was catching up with notifications of a group chat for German learners, when I realized they chose “can friendship also be political?” for today’s meet up discussion. After a minute of grieving that I wasn’t going to make it today to discuss such an interesting topic, I realized that the organizer had chosen this topic because she had just finished reading “La fiesta de las amigas” or “The (female) friends’ party” by Mana Muscarsel, a book (according to the organizer) about queer relationships with the focus on friendships.
Seconds later I was typing in Audible to see if I could hear this book, but alas! Then I checked Kindle, and bingo! I downloaded a fragment.
Why the enthusiasm? I’m developing an interest in a way of life that places friendships as the main source of support and community, and I absolutely would love to hear people’s experiences around that.
The fallout
The enthusiasm didn’t last. In just the first pages of the fragment I read vague scenes and broad descriptive strokes, that could be beautiful and exciting for someone else, but not for my autistic brain that craves clarity and specificity. Even with flowery language (which I do enjoy, please reference “Flowery introduction”), I like to understand the purpose behind it before I feel like I’m wadding my way though thick rainforest armed only with a dull machete, in search of a bit of light. Mixed in were terms that are not easy or intuitive, that require prior research and internalization.
Example
Translated form the Spanish original:
“If we bring this to the terrain of sexual orientation, we can say that compulsory heterosexuality (Butler, 1990; Rich, 1996, as cited in Muscarsel Isla, 2024, “Intromisión: meternos con nosotras mismas”) shapes bodies by assuming that a body can legitimately orient itself toward some objects as lovers and not toward others. By regulating and shaping these approaches, our own body is also shaped as a ‘solidified history of past approaches’ (Ahmed, 2015, p. 223, as cited in Muscarsel Isla, 2024, “Intromisión: meternos con nosotras mismas”).”
How to make a text accessible? An opinion informed by my autistic brain
What is “shaping a body”? What is a “solidified history of past approaches”?
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As a person who is aware of compulsory heterosexuality and what “legitimately orienting oneself towards some ‘objects’ as lovers” might mean, I still find a barrier to reading that fragment I found at the beginning of the book. Not that I couldn’t ever understand it, if I invested time and patience to that purpose, but as it currently stands on my open Kindle app it doesn’t feel inviting, and I might just not read on.
What was lacking?
- Clarity of purpose: why is the author I describing this?
- Being concrete: providing an example of what is being described.
These are the two best ways I’ve found help me retain information, because it gives it scope (what am I reading?), reason (why am I reading this?) and a point of evidence to contrast against (did I understand what this might be applied to?).
As an extra tip, if you didn’t write for a specific, knowledgeable audience in mind, assume people don’t know what you’re going into, so give enough context that it might be clear to a “newbie”.
As someone who has had avid spouts of consuming queer discourse and terminology online since becoming and adult (and perhaps some years prior too) I still don’t feel like this book was directed at me. Perhaps it was aimed at queer scholars, which is also valid, but today I am using it as a (counter) example for accessible information, which most of academic literature (sadly) isn’t. And I should know! I was trained on writing scientific papers while getting my Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology Engineering and while I was studying Psychology as a minor.
The example, reworked
Disclaimer: I have not read “La fiesta de las amigas” or the books referenced in the extract in full, so I might only be guessing to what the original intent was, despite a fast online check.
Let me explain to you what “compulsory heteronormativity” is and its effects on diverse people:
Most societies nowadays expect sexual and romantic attraction to happen between a man and a woman (a hetero relationship), and for a life to be built around that: dating, marriage with roles assigned to the men (specifically because they are men) and to women (specifically because they are women), having children, etc. Any attraction or life path that falls outside of this predetermined rule is seen by the majority of people living in these societies as different or illegitimate, or even inconceivable! Here, we are referencing people who fall outside of this pre-established norm as diverse or queer, and people who do follow the norm as normative. Hence the term hetero- (man+woman) normative, and compulsory because it is expected and enforced by how people act and interact based on these expectations.
The misalignment with societal expectations, generates friction or pressure in the diverse individual’s interactions with heteronormative individuals. As a response to these frictions queer people might adopt responses that have both visible repercussions (though clothing and style choices, that perhaps show their ‘miss-alignment’ so that they don’t have to explain it themselves) and invisible repercussions (the emotional load of handling difficult conversations or of hiding something normative folks don’t feel the need to hide). These repercussions happen over time and build up many facets of the queer individual: their posture, image, reactions and stress points.
Closing commentary
Is my text longer? Of course, explaining often demands some extra words. Do I believe that a newbie is more likely to understand this text as compared to the first one if they are motivated (like I was and am) to learn more on this topic.
Sounding smart can give you some charisma points in certain scenarios, compressing your explanation for efficacy for reading might be important in the scenario where you have a very important message, a specific, knowledgable audience and a reduced word count. But more often I find the value in sharing ideas is finding both like- and different-minded individuals who actually understand your ideas and are willing to discuss and examine them, to build more together. This is why I believe information should be written more often in plain language, translated more often into sign language and available for other communities with informational needs and/or barriers of their own (like no internet connectivity for distant communities or the need to use a screen-reader for the blind), so that we can all metaphorically sit at the table and discuss. Because, also in nature, diversity is strength.
References
Muscarsel Isla, M. (2024). La fiesta de las amigas [Kindle edition]. Palíndroma-Alacraña.
