Plain, Persuasive, or Technical? Matching Language Style to Life Sciences Content in Localization
In life sciences content and communication, scientific accuracy is paramount. But getting the style right is just as critical. Whether the goal is to persuade patients, inform regulators, disseminate clinical trial results, or launch a new drug or device in global markets, your content needs to be written to ensure your message is understood, trusted, and leads to the desired action.
Tip: HOW you communicate is just as important as WHAT you communicate.
To a degree, this comes naturally. We talk very differently to a group of young children vs. a panel of expert scientists. Even non-experts can tell that healthcare advertising is written in a very different style than an Investigational New Drug Application (IND). But the devil is in the proverbial details: Getting the nuances right for your target audience is as much an art as it is a science. And finding that sweet spot of accuracy and audience-appropriateness is never more challenging than in the context of a language and culture we are not intimately familiar with.
This is more than a nice-to-have. The consequences of using the wrong style for the wrong audience and purpose can be vast and potentially devastating. Luckily, with a bit of diligence and the right partners, this type of blunder is easily avoided.
The Three Essential Life Sciences Content Styles
Taken together, words, tone, and complexity make up different styles, something language professionals also refer to as “register”. Broadly speaking, we tend to use three main and distinct styles in the life sciences.
Technical Language
| Characterized by: | Precise, scientific, often jargon-heavy wording and phrasing that communicates about a complex topic at a high level of detail. Understanding this type of content often requires expert knowledge in a given field. |
| Target audience: | Regulatory, researchers, clinicians, and other experts. |
| Relevance: | This style of writing removes ambiguity, creates clarity for expert audiences, and allows clinicians and regulators to make safe, informed decisions. |
| Typical usage: | Drug approval applications, clinical trial protocols, scientific publications, continuing medical education, etc. |
| Purpose: | Ensures accurate, precise communication with or between specialists about highly technical topics. |
Plain Language
| Characterized by: | Clear, unambiguous wording and jargon-free sentences with simple structures that break down complex information into simple concepts. A standardized reading level (such as a school grade) may be included. |
| Target audience: | Patients, caregivers, and the general public (e.g., potential study participants) |
| Relevance: | This style of writing helps audiences with potentially limited health and general literacy understand complex content such as medical information or the legal implications of signing an informed consent form. Various jurisdictions require plain language for specific documents or content. |
| Typical usage: | Patient information materials, informed consent forms, clinical trial recruitment materials, public health communication, etc. |
| Purpose: | Enhances readability, facilitates comprehension, and builds trust. |
Persuasive Language
| Characterized by: | Engaging writing designed to persuade and motivate a specific audience to take a desired action. Depending on the audience, this may contain elements of plain or technical language. |
| Target audience: | Primarily aimed at consumers, buyers, and decision-makers, but can be adapted to any carefully circumscribed target group. |
| Relevance: | Drives engagement and adoption of therapies or medical devices, including health apps; promotes enrollment, e.g., in clinical trials or CME courses. |
| Typical usage: | Marketing materials of any kind. |
| Purpose: | Drives market adoption, product uptake, and/or engagement. |
One Therapy – Three Audiences
So what does this look like in practice?
Assume you are a pharmaceutical company looking to bring a new diabetes therapy to market. You’ve completed your clinical trials. Now, you need to gain approval from regulatory authorities, market your product, and create informational content for patients.
Addressing Regulators
Regulators need exact details and expect sophisticated style and formal terminology:
“The investigational compound demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in HbA1c levels over 24 weeks, meeting predefined endpoints for non-inferiority.”
Addressing Patients
Patient information is very different: While factual accuracy is important, your style must explain benefits, risks, and use in simple, easy-to-follow language for all (health) literacy levels:
“This medicine helps lower your blood sugar over time. It can help prevent diabetes complications like nerve damage.”
Addressing Buyers
Finally, your product is ready to be marketed. This involves telling a persuasive story that appeals to your audience’s emotions. Scientific accuracy must still be maintained, but you also want to highlight value over features:
“Finally, a breakthrough treatment that puts better blood sugar control within reach – helping people with diabetes live healthier, more confident lives.”
The Risks of Getting Life Sciences Content Wrong
Not choosing the appropriate tone and style for your target audience, culture, and locale is risky.
During the regulatory approval process, imprecise, unclear, or overly casual language might delay approval, which can be costly and could give competitors a significant edge.
Inversely, if your tone and style are too complex and jargon-heavy for patients and consumers, you risk violating regulatory requirements and leaving patients confused. This lays the groundwork for loss of trust and nonadherent behavior.
Finally, marketing content that misses the mark with overly formal or technical language or passive voice will fail to connect with your target audience, leading to poor engagement and missed opportunities.
This is why careful attention to the details of tone and voice, both in the source and in the translated and localized content, is the best way to safeguard your investment and secure your organization’s ROI.
Styles in Translation
Naturally, this also applies in other languages and cultures, such as during regulatory submissions, global clinical trials, international marketing, and patient and provider communications.
The first step to successful translation into other languages is to make sure that the materials being sent for adaptation are fully accurate and linguistically appropriate. You may also want to brief your provider on the goals of various materials. Finally, select an experienced language service provider with the right expertise, talent pool, and quality control processes.
“Finally, a breakthrough treatment that puts better blood sugar control within reach – helping people with diabetes live healthier, more confident lives.”
The Path to Success
Matching your tone and style to your communication’s intent—and adapting it for every locale—is essential for compliance, trust, and impact. Scientific accuracy delivered in the right style helps you achieve your global goals.
It pays to partner with a specialized, reputable language service provider like Vistatec. Such providers will carefully select the best processes and the perfect linguists for every project, then back them up with rigorous quality control to ensure your content lands as intended. Not sure where you stand? Contact Vistatec Life Sciences today to discuss how we can meet your specific requirements.
