簡潔 vs 長篇大論
Tuesday, May 9, 2006 13:54寫文章, 長篇大論是沒用的. 科學研究出來也是說簡潔清楚最重要. 以前大學的時候就體會過了~ 不夠字數的話, 不應該繼續亂掰, 因為那意思是說你找的資料還不夠, 字數才會不夠. 廢話盡量少講, 把重點寫出來就好. 這樣讀起來比較省時間. 如果是寫assignment的話, 這樣可以讓lecturer 心情好一點, 給的分數自然也高一點…. lol
(from New Scientist)
The long-word ploy
THIS week’s award for the “article we wish several people we can think of would read” goes to “Consequences of erudite vernacular utilised irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly” by Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University (Applied Cognitive Psychology, DOI: 10.1002/acp.1178).
It concerns the ploy of beefing up your report or essay with polysyllabic words in the hope that the person grading it will think you are smart. But guess what? It doesn’t work. Oppenheimer presented participants in his study with several essays that varied both in quality and in the number of long words they contained. Whether the essays were good or mediocre, the readers gave the unnecessarily wordy ones lower grades than the concise.
Come to think of it, the finding ought not be that surprising. Like practically every other psychology experiment ever performed, this one was done on college undergraduates, who probably use the long-word ploy themselves and know it when they see it.
