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.

研究发现在学术研究中，文体对影响力的影响很大，研究使用自然语言处理分析了近 30000 篇学术文章，发现文体词汇可以解释语言对引用的影响率达到 13-27％，而且确认了书写简单性、个人感受和时态视角在其中起到的作用。