Comment by keiferski

Thanks for writing this, I’ve had similar feelings about a variety of writers over the years.

My conclusion was just that some people write to signal their intelligence to other people by including as many references and complex ideas as possible, with basically zero attention paid to the form of the writing itself. It is just a form of information transfer, not a particular interest in the writing art form.

And so if you’re not interested in the topics they’re talking about, and you don’t care about evaluating the writer’s intelligence, the whole thing just seems rambling and pompous.

I wish these writers would study essays that are praised for their clarity and brevity. Or haiku, which is defined by its brevity. Truly great writers IMO do not write 10 sentences when one will do.