Why do some things succeed in the marketplace of ideas? While some argue that content drives success, others suggest that style, or the way ideas are presented, also plays an important role. To provide a stringent test of style's importance, we examine it in a context where content should be paramount: academic research. While scientists often see writing as a disinterested way to communicate unobstructed truth, a multi-method investigation indicates that writing style shapes impact. Separating style from content can be difficult as papers that tend to use certain language may also write about certain topics. Consequently, we focus on a unique class of words linked to style (i.e., function words such as "and," "the," and "on") that are completely devoid of content. Natural language processing of almost 30,000 articles from a range of disciplines finds that function words explain 13-27% of language's impact on citations. Ancillary analyses explore specific categories of function words to suggest how style matters, highlighting the role of writing simplicity, personal voice, and temporal perspective. Experiments further underscore the causal impact of style. The results suggest how to boost communication's impact and highlight the value of natural language processing for understanding the success of ideas.
翻译:为何有些东西在思想的市场中成功? 一些人认为内容是成功的,而另一些人则认为风格或思想的表达方式也具有重要作用。为了提供对风格重要性的严格测试,我们在一个内容应居于至高无上的背景中审视它:学术研究。科学家们往往认为写作是一种不感兴趣的方式来交流不受阻碍的真理,而多方法的调查则表明写作风格会影响。由于往往使用某些语言的论文也可能写某些专题,因此区分内容的风格可能很困难。因此,我们侧重于与风格相联系的独特词汇类别(即“和”、“和”、“和”等功能词以及“上”等完全没有内容的词类)。来自一系列学科的近30,000篇文章的自然语言处理发现,功能词可以解释13-27 %的语言对引文的影响。语言分析探索特定功能词汇类别,以建议风格的重要性,强调写作简单、个人声音和时间视角的作用。实验进一步强调风格的因果关系。结果表明如何促进理解和突出自然语言处理的成功。