Simple writing best, study finds

Writers who use big words to impress their readers may actually find that the strategy backfires, according to a study by psychology professor Daniel Oppenheimer.

The study, which will appear in the next issue of the scientific journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, showed that complex writing leads to a lower evaluation of the author's intelligence.

Oppenheimer decided to investigate the effect of using long words needlessly because of his own experiences grading papers at Stanford and Princeton. Long-winded papers, he said, are "extremely unpleasant to read."

"While students at Stanford and Princeton tend to be quite smart, and on the whole are good writers, many feel the need to try and prove their intelligence by using the longest words they know," Oppenheimer said.

In five experiments, Oppenheimer surveyed Stanford undergraduates' impressions of graduate student applications, translations of Descartes and sociology dissertations.

"All in all, the effect is extremely robust: needless complexity leads to negative evaluations," Oppenheimer said in the conclusion to his study. "Complex texts are difficult to read, which in turn leads to lower ratings."

Oppenheimer also found that students rated papers in hard-to-read fonts more critically than those in Times New Roman.

Oppenheimer said he tries to keep these facts in mind in his own work.

"I try to write in such a way that my grandparents, who have no formal training in psychology, would be able to understand what I'm saying," Oppenheimer said.

Oppenheimer is continuing research at the University on questions that arose while conducting his published study, such as how a person processes information depending on the prominence of the subject or personal relevance.

The Applied Cognitive Psychology journal is published by the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.