How Simple Writing Enhances the Public's Trust in Science

Table of Links

• Abstract
• The Benefits of Simple Writing
• The Current Work
• Study 1a: Method
• Study 1a: Results
• Study 1b: Method
• Study 1b: Results
• Study 2: Method
• Study 2: Results
• General Discussion, Acknowledgements, and References

The Benefits of Simple Writing

The idea that simple language patterns can improve perceptions of scientists is supported by decades of processing fluency research (13–15). This literature suggests people tend to use their feelings when consuming information (16, 17), and simple (fluent) information feels better to most people than complex (disfluent) information. Support for this contention suggests people engage with, approach, and prefer content that is written in simple versus complex terms (e.g., simple synonyms of the same concept compared to complex synonyms) (18–20). Indeed, much of this research supports the simpler-is-better hypothesis, which claims that people will engage with content that is communicated in simple versus complex terms, absent some instrumental goal being activated (18).

The most common linguistic fluency dimension is lexical fluency, which considers the degree to which people use common and everyday terms in the communication. People perceive scientists to be more intelligent if their work is written with simple words (e.g., the word job) compared to complex words (e.g., the word occupation) (15). In most cases, people prefer simple synonyms for a concept compared to complex synonyms of the same concept because it is more of a challenge to interpret and comprehend complexity, and people are economical with their effort and attention (21, 22). Another fluency dimension is analytic writing fluency (23). This dimension considers one’s communication style and how people communicate, instead of what they are communicating about (24, 25). According to prior work, a simple communication style is informal and reflects a story (e.g., it contains more pronouns, adverbs) compared to a complex communication style, which is formal and contains high rates of articles and prepositions (26–28). Finally, another relevant fluency concept is structural fluency, which considers the length of words and sentences. Longer words (e.g., occupation vs. job) and sentences with more words tend to require more effort to process (29). Therefore, the final marker of fluency relevant to the current work is operationalized by readability, which considers verbal simplicity/complexity in terms of word and sentence length.