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Writers who use long words needlessly and choose complicated font 
styles are seen as less intelligent than those who stick with basic 
vocabulary and plain text, according to new research from the Princeton 
University in New Jersey, to be published in the next edition of 
Applied Cognitive Psychology.

This implies that efforts to impress readers by using florid font 
styles and searching through a thesaurus may have the opposite effect.

Study author Daniel Oppenheimer based his findings on students' 
responses to writing samples for which the complexity of the font or 
vocabulary was systematically manipulated. In a series of five 
experiments, he found that people tended to rate the intelligence of 
authors who wrote essays in simpler language, using an easy to read 
font, as higher than those who authored more complex works.

"It's important to point out that this research is not about problems 
with using long words but about using long words needlessly," said 
study author Daniel Oppenheimer.

"Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as 
unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers' 
evaluations of the text and its author."

The samples of text included graduate school applications, sociology 
dissertation abstracts, and translations of a work of Descartes. Times 
New Roman and italicised Juice font were used in samples to further 
assess the effect of fluency on rating levels.

Interestingly, by making people aware that the source of low fluency 
was irrelevant to judgement, Oppenheimer found that they 
overcompensated and became biased in the opposite direction. In a final 
experiment, he provided samples of text printed with normal and low 
printer toner levels. The low toner levels made the text harder to 
read, but readers were able to identify the toner as being responsible 
for the difficulty, and therefore didn't blame the authors.

"The continuing popularity amongst students of using big words and 
attractive font styles may be due to the fact that they may not realise 
these techniques could backfire," Oppenheimer noted.

"One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and 
it's more likely you'll be thought of as intelligent."

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Daniel M. Oppenheimer, Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized 
Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly, 
Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology 2005, DOI: 10.1002/acp.1178