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Authors who use
big words needlessly tend to be seen as less intelligent than
authors who use a more basic vocabulary, according to a study.
Findings were based
on students’ feedback on writing samples that used simple
or complex language. Writing samples included graduate school
applications, sociology dissertations and work of philosopher
Descartes. Half of the students knew the author of the writing
samples while half did not.
People tended to
rate the intelligence of authors who wrote essays with simpler
language as higher than those who used complicated language,
and the type of writing did not influence results. The more
needlessly complex language used, the worse the essays were
rated.
Though researchers
were not certain why intelligence rating corresponded to simpler
language, they suggest that people may prefer to read things
that are easy to understand.
A previous survey
found that as many as 75 percent of undergraduate students
may add unnecessarily big words to their writing to appear
more intelligent--a technique that may backfire according
to the results of this study.
Researchers noted
that the problem isn’t in using complex words, but rather
in using them unnecessarily when a more basic word would suffice.
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