How To: Write for a Global Audience

As a business writer, you're an expert at communicating effectively to a target audience. That audience tends to be specific, such as "mobile device users in the food industry" or "18 to 36-year-old American male video game players." But what happens when you're writing material for an audience that could grow to be much larger? That is, your neatly pre-defined U.S. audience suddenly becomes a Japanese, French, German, and Saudi Arabian audience?

Writing your original copy in English, with an international audience in mind, can mean the difference between an expensive, drawn-out translation project and one that is simple, straightforward and cost effective.

But how do you write for a global audience? The trick is to moderate cultural and stylistic elements, opting for common ground and clarity. The bells and whistles that you've picked up over the years, writing to a fluent American or native English-speaking audience add a level of complexity and cost to global communication that should be weighed against their benefits. The equation will vary whether you're writing marketing copy, training content or instructional manuals. But the basic guidelines hold true for any material that's destined for multi-cultural markets.

Here are five tips to help you out:

1. Be clear and consistent. When writing for a native English audience, you might have, for the sake of variation, the tendency to use different words that mean the same thing. However, this is generally not a good practice for global informational or instructional content. While consistent terminology is indeed important for effective communication to native and non-native English speakers alike, it's no less than essential if you want to achieve quality and cost-effective translations. Of course the extent of flair will vary depending on the type of content. Just be aware that while variety might be the spice of life, it has a direct impact on translation costs and timelines.

2. Use shorter sentences. Do you remember your fourth grade English teacher telling you about the evils of run-on sentences? You probably forgot all about that by the time you hit college where English professors reveled in esoteric, complicated written trains of thought. Short sentences give international readers confidence and minimize the risk of cross-cultural misunderstandings. Long sentences tend to be difficult to accurately translate, obscure the main point, and cause confusion.

3. Watch out for common cross-cultural "misses." Avoid idiomatic expressions, as they can be easily misinterpreted. Also steer clear of obvious cultural references, such as "hit one out of the park," since they may not work across borders. Be careful as well to not assume that symbols will make sense visually or as explained in your text across all regions of the world. For example, think twice about using a hexagonal red "Stop" sign. In Japan, for example "Stop" is an inverted triangle. If you're using expressions or symbols, make sure to identify them for cross-cultural review so you can select global examples or swap them out for local ones in each market.

4. Think about text expansion. For text that will be translated, remember that most languages are 20% longer than English, so keep that in mind when writing and working with design layouts for your text.

5. Use the right tool for the job and XML. As tempting as it may be to use your familiar authoring tool, not all work well across languages. Make sure your authoring and publishing tools support translated files and an efficient translation process. For example, make sure your content management system (CMS) can easily export and re-import content in a standard XML format. If you're developing training material, some eLearning tools support multilingual translation much better than others. Plus, consider using XML-structured writing tools for technical documentation. They will help you write clearer, more concise documents and produce XML and XLIFF file formats that enable your translation vendor to handle documents consistently and without structural errors. Picking the right tool and file format will help you cut down on translation costs.