Big words, Trump's a 4th grader, and the Presidential Speechalist

K.I.S.S
I have been trying to tell my students this for years, but we finally have evidence: using big words does not make you look smart. In fact, the opposite is true.

In one experiment, the researchers — including Daniel M. Oppenheimer, of the UCLA Anderson School of Management — took real college admission essays and replaced some of the simpler words used in them with more complicated ones. They then gave these to their study participants, to read and rate the competency and confidence level of the authors. As it turned out, the authors of the essays with complicated language were rated lower than the authors of the essays with simpler language. 

Read more about it here

The reading level of the speech of presidential candidates
While we are on the subject of simple language, check out the grade level of the language of presidential hopefuls 

Based on the above data, we REALLY need to worry about Trump. Read the accompanying article here.

The Presidential Speechalist
All this talk of presidential speeches reminds me of a classic video