The heading above is one of George Orwell’s six famous rules for writing in his 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’. Another was “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent”. Most style guides have touted these principles ever since (even if Orwell himself didn’t quite follow them). But does it make for better communication?
Back in 2006, psychology professor Daniel M. Oppenheimer decided to put it to the test (and his paper, ‘Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with using long words needlessly’, won him an Ig Nobel award). He conducted five experiments among Stanford undergraduates to examine whether using more complex words or making text harder to process actually enhances or diminishes the perceived intelligence of the writer:
- Experiment 1: Replaced words in graduate admission essays with longer synonyms from a thesaurus (increasing complexity). Participants decided whether to accept or reject the applicant and rated how difficult the text was to read.
- Experiment 2: Compared two English translations of the same paragraph from Descartes, one much more complex than the other. Measured how complexity influenced judgements about the author’s intelligence.
- Experiment 3: Simplified, rather than complicated, a sociology dissertation abstract by swapping long words for shorter synonyms. Tested whether a reduction in complexity influenced perceived intelligence.
- Experiment 4: Used a difficult-to-read font to lower ‘processing fluency’. Observed whether participants rated the author as less intelligent when reading was made harder.
- Experiment 5: Introduced an obvious cause of disfluency – ‘low toner’ printing – to see if participants would discount reading difficulty when it was clearly the printer’s fault (not the author’s).
Across these experiments, the main conclusion is that unnecessary complexity generally backfires: it decreases perceptions of the author’s intelligence. When texts were difficult to read – whether due to complex wording or unfriendly presentation – participants tended to judge the writer less favourably. By contrast, when the text was made simpler, authors were seen as more intelligent and more worthy of acceptance. The common thread was that processing fluency: when reading felt smooth and effortless, participants tended to grant higher evaluations of the author. In Oppenheimer’s words:
- “Needless complexity leads to negative evaluations.”
- “When texts were written in a font that was difficult to read, the author of the text was judged to be less intelligent.”
- “The pundits are likely right: write clearly and simply if you can, and you’ll be more likely to be thought of as intelligent.”
For anyone self-publishing, it’s interesting to note the importance of the presentation (i.e. the typesetting) as well as the style of the content! (I can help with both of these.)
Reference: Oppenheimer, D.M. (2006) Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with using long words needlessly. Applied Cognitive Psychology 20 (2) 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1178