That is the conclusion of this new research paper by Eric Martinez (MIT), Frances Mollica (Edinburgh), and Edward Gibson (MIT). Their fancy paper is awkwardly titled “Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives processing difficulty in legal language,” so I am guessing that most academic researchers and “social scientists” are shitty wordsmiths too! (A more interesting paper would try to explain the reasons why most legal–and social science–writings are so terrible in the first place.) File under: true but trivial?
prior probability 
Could this observation be extended to academic writing as a whole?
Then again (layperson speaking), I do believe there are notable exceptions.
Agreed!
Wouldn’t be wonderful if we were all Malcolm Gladwell?!
His book “Talking to Strangers” is my fave!
I have only read Outliers, but I was extremely impressed.
same here; full disclosure: I have read all of Gladwell’s books, except The Bomber Mafia (his most recent book)
Is reading Nassim Taleb worthwhile or a mistake?
I know that Taleb is a polemical figure, but I actually like his work (especially The Black Swan) because he shares a lot of anecdotes about Lebanon and because he is not afraid to “name names”
I have mountain of books to read( I am currently reading Dealing With Darwin, by Geoffrey A. Moore. I have been on a business kick lately; partly career motivated) but I just picked up Black Swan from a secondhand shop.
I listened to Taleb speak on podcasts and he seemed interesting ( how many times has he been on Econtalk now?).
I forgot to mention Taleb’s book “Skin in the Game” is also good!
Ok, so also pick up Fooled By Randomness and Skin in the Game. Thanks for the recommendation.
Fooled by Randomness, if I am not mistaken, was his first book. I actually read it when it first came out!
I think that was 2001, man I can say would have been game for that back then being only 12.
**I can’t say
PS: I think you are going to love “skin in the game” — it’s his most personal of books (though at the same time, he does come across as a conceited asshole!!!)
I look forward to reading it. But aren’t most geniuses to some extent arrogant. But like anything else in live there are bound to be exceptions.
True!
*** In life
What is my issue today?
“stuff happens”