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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48637
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48637
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

You just have to consider (or decide) on the level of expertise of your audience.

One technique is to write to your slightly-younger self; assume the audience knows as much as you did **_before_** you ever heard about this topic you are about to write, and the only level of detail you need is what you did not know when you first heard about this.

Another technique is to presume the audience is not laymen but educated with a Bachelor's degree in your topic. Also, they have enough expertise to look up or google any standard terminology you used that they don't understand. Some of the burden is on them, you obviously cannot write an article about the construction of a supercomputer and provide a full graduate course on the concepts for a high-schooler.

Yet another approach is to measure your depth: If you are explaining concept X and it depends on Y and Z, and Y in those in turn depend on Y=f(J, K, L) and Z=f(M,N,O) you are too deep: You are telling people they need to understand (J, K, L, M, N, O) and how they interact to form (Y, Z) to understand X. Forget it, your depth is too deep.

In this case, X =f(Y,Z)=f(f(J,K,L), f(M,N,O)) and you are trying to explain 8 elements to explain 1. This is just too much for most people to follow.

In such circumstances, I'd say follow the rule of 3, supported by many psychological studies. If you need to explain new concept X, give no more than three other elements/conditions/concepts/relationships to do it. If somebody needs to look THOSE up to get X, that's fine. If you can, choose supporting elements easy to look up or google. Beyond those three, readers are on their own. They either know them, or need to look them up. You can't always be writing for high-school freshmen, or if that IS your audience, there is a limit to how much technical load you can expect them to follow:

Pick the level of education your audience has, and don't write more than one or two grades above it, **or below it**. Too far above it is too much new information for them to process, too far below it is too much information they already know.

Original score: 1