“College students—and, after they graduate, many working adults—have been socialized to believe they must ‘sound smart’ when they write—that is, that their regular inner monologue is not smart enough. So when they read advanced, specialized writing and don’t understand it, they understandably equate completely incomprehensible with intelligent ... What they don’t realize is that the smartest people express difficult concepts in everyday prose ... None other than Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote about mind-shreddingly difficult concepts in sparse, crystal-clear prose, and insisted: ‘Anything that can be said, can be said clearly.’”
—Rebecca Schuman
Related: Are Liberal Ideas Harder to Communicate?
Sounding Smart Is Not the Same Thing As Being Smart
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