Posted on 11/01/2005 9:10:26 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
Though copy editors and popular writers have known it for long, an experiment by a psychologist establishes the key to impressive writing - keep it plain and simple.
Writers who use long words needlessly and choose complicated font styles in print are seen as less intelligent than those who employ basic vocabulary and plain text, according to new research from the Princeton University in New Jersey to be published in the next edition of Applied Cognitive Psychology.
In the study titled 'Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly', Daniel Oppenheimer based his findings on students' responses to writing samples for which the complexity of the font or vocabulary was systematically manipulated.
In a series of five experiments, he found that people tended to rate the intelligence of authors who wrote essays in simpler language, using an easy to read font, as higher than those who authored more complex works.
"It's important to point out that this research is not about problems with using long words but about using long words needlessly," Oppenheimer was quoted as saying.
"Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers' evaluations of the text and its author."
The samples of text included graduate school applications, sociology dissertation abstracts, and translations of a work of Descartes. Times New Roman and italicized Juice font were used in samples to further assess the effect of fluency on rating levels.
Interestingly, by making people aware that the source of low fluency was irrelevant to judgement, Oppenheimer found that they overcompensated and became biased in the opposite direction.
In a final experiment, he provided samples of text printed with normal and low printer toner levels. The low toner levels made the text harder to read, but readers were able to identify the toner as being responsible for the difficulty, and therefore didn't blame the authors.
"One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it's more likely you'll be thought of as intelligent," Oppenheimer said.
Good.
Brevity is the soul of wit............
Mr. Will, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
"Short words are best and the old words, when short, are the best of all." -- Winston Churchill
Eschew obfuscation.
Yea. Right.
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's overly-excessive, verbose and redundant wordiness.
"Physician, heal thyself." (The article author obviously missed the point of the article.)
***********
LOL!
Someone please clue the posters in the religion forum to this fact. Also, sticking to one font and one text color, with limited italics and underlining, is a good idea.
gesundheit!
Mr. Strunk, meet Mr. White.
One of my favorite lines from "Cheers" had Frasier Crane indignantly asking "Oh, so you're telling me I'm redundant? I repeat myself? I say the same things over and over?"
Doh?
Could you please elaborate?
It's the language of the psuedo-intellectuals. They use a thousand words to say nothing.
I think he said he's gonna bump this puppy.
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant ;-)
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