The Metrics of Style: Adam Smith Teaches Efficient Rhetoric

Arthur Diamond () and David Levy

Economic Inquiry, 1994, vol. 32, issue 1, 138-45

Abstract: Does style matter for economic writing? Several stylistic characteristics of ninety-seven AEA presidential addresses, including word length, sentence length, and percent of sentences in the passive voice, were computed and used to explain citations to these economists' work. Avoidance of the passive is an old stylistic norm given by Adam Smith. Word length and sentence length serve as modern stylistic norms. Only the percent passive matters to explain citations. Perhaps not coincidentally, while writing clarity in the data set has declined over time when measured by the new norm, it has improved when measured by the old norm. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1994
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