Reading Talking Points

• "In another kind of academic talk the author may display his learning to conceal a lack of ideas." I've definitely done this before, like in the case of writing a paper you are totally not prepared for; people can probably see right through.
• "mistakenly assume their goal is to impress rather than inform the readers" a lot of newspapers are like this, and people are often deterred from even bothering with trying to understand it
• "confuse simplicity with simple-mindedness" people think if they use small words they will sound less educated, so they try to use bigger words to sound smarter