Comments on: Episode 120: Big Words Make You Look LESS Intelligent

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 01:54:10 +0000

Thanks Monica. Glad you enjoyed the episode. Yea, I think you’re right about why the “low toner” essays were rated well – everyone can identify with that experience and as you say, there’s a certain honesty about it.

By: Monica

Monica — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 02:32:36 +0000

Fantastic stuff, very enjoyable podcast. I tended to write very simply at university, based on the idea that essays aren’t meant to make you sound intelligent, they’re meant to demonstrate a sound understanding of the topic.
Interestingly, Australian universities tend to specify font style and size in their marking requirements, so I was surprised to hear that other fonts are even available to college/university students. Just a bit of interesting trivia
Finally, in relation to the experiment that produced the surprising findings of a more favourable judgement of students whose toner was running dry, I would suggest that perhaps this was about respecting the “honesty” of the applicants. My opinion is that people often respect and admire someone who is able to say that they’ve “stuffed up”, or to admit that their submission may not be up to scratch – but I guess that’s another discussion entirely!
Thanks for a wonderful podcast, keep them coming!

By: David

David — Mon, 31 May 2010 09:56:06 +0000

Just listening now to the podcast… Just wondering if there is something else in play when the evaluators judge whether or not to accept an applicant… Specially if it’s in literature, perhaps the more pedantic or complex sentences represent a threat to the evaluators (competition), or that their difficulty in understanding the sentences makes them feel somewhat less intelligent, therefore less likely to accept the applicant?

Regarding the weird font, I’d personally reject the applicant just because it’s a voluntary choice of a hard-to-read font, and looks goofy. It’s like showing up at the interview in a clown suit.

By: Blaine

Blaine — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:12:58 +0000

While listening to the podcast, I thought about the relevance of the Sokal hoax (http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/ ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair ) as well; however, the Sokal paper and controversy is more than an issue of complex writing. Also, the ending of the podcast said something to the effect that writing for professionals required complexity to be accepted as legitimate to peers.

By: Isabel

Isabel — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:34:43 +0000

I think you’ve missed the whole point of writing complexly. Obviously it’s better to write clearly & simply when you have a distinct point to make and solid evidence to support it.

But surely you’ve been in the situation of having to fill up a number of pages on a topic that you think is stupid and have little or nothing to say about. Complex writing obscures the lack of content in your writing while also filling up space. See the Sokal hoax for an example which contradicts the study featured in the podcast.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:01:36 +0000

I found the link: http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2006

Very interesting. The prize is given, “For achievements that first make people LAUGH
then make them THINK”. Thanks Blaine

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:53:46 +0000

I didn’t know this Blaine. Where can I find out about this ignoble prize (I’ll Google it).

By: Blaine

Blaine — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:35:39 +0000

Hi Michael: The author’s website indicates that this paper is a 2006 Ignoble Prize winner (mentioned on TIPs). Also SSCI indicates 13 citations of this article; however, most are by the author in subsequent works (nice evidence of self citation).