The tapping experiment
In 1990, Elizabeth Newton ran a study at Stanford that is the foundation of the whole book. She split people into tappers and listeners. A tapper picked a famous song — Happy Birthday, say — and tapped its rhythm on a table. The listener tried to name it.
Across 120 songs, listeners identified three. A success rate of 2.5%.
The finding that earned a doctorate is what happened next. Before each attempt, Newton asked the tappers to predict how often the listener would guess right. They predicted 50%.
The Heaths call this the Curse of Knowledge: once you know something, you cannot imagine not knowing it. You cannot un-hear the tune. And the tapper cannot understand why the listener is being so obtuse, because from the inside, the message is obviously clear.
In a second language, you are tapping twice
This is our first claim, and we think it is the most useful thing in the book for a learner.
When you write in English, you already know what you meant. That is the ordinary curse — the tapper's problem, the same one every native writer has.
But you are carrying a second one. You also know what the sentence would have meant in your first language, and that meaning is playing in your head while you read your English back. So a sentence built on Japanese or Spanish or Arabic intuitions sounds complete to you, because you are hearing the tune it plays in the language you actually think in. Your reader hears the knocking.
Three books, three pieces of advice, one underlying cause. Once you see it, the remedy in all three cases is the same: stop consulting your own sense of whether it is clear. Your sense of clarity is exactly the thing that is broken. Use an external check instead — a reader, a mechanical test, a score.
Concreteness is the antidote — and it is cheaper
The Heaths' six principles are Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. For someone composing in a second language, Concrete is the one that does most of the work, and it is where our second claim lives.
Learners believe abstraction is the advanced move. Abstract nouns feel academic; concrete detail feels childish, like something you would say because you lacked the vocabulary to say it properly. So under pressure — in an essay, in an interview, in a meeting — they climb the ladder of abstraction, and land here:
In contemporary society, various factors contribute to the deterioration of interpersonal communication, and technology plays a significant role in this phenomenon.
Now count what that sentence costs. Every single word in it is an abstract word that has to be used precisely — factors, contribute, deterioration, interpersonal, significant, phenomenon. Each one is a chance to choose the wrong collocation, the wrong preposition, the wrong register. And when the sentence is finished, the reader has been told nothing they can picture.
Now the concrete version:
My grandmother used to phone her sister every Sunday. Now they send each other photographs on WhatsApp and speak twice a year.
This holds whether you are writing an essay, giving a presentation, answering an interview question or arguing in a meeting. It is craft, not exam technique — the room does not change it.
The honest qualification
We are not saying replace your argument with anecdotes. That would be a bad essay and a bad presentation.
Concreteness works as the evidence under an abstract claim, not as a substitute for having one. The Heaths' own examples all have this shape: a general point, made believable and memorable by something specific enough to picture.
- Claim, then picture. Technology has changed how families keep in touch — my grandmother used to phone her sister every Sunday; now they send photographs and speak twice a year.
- Not picture alone. A charming detail with no claim attached is a story, not an argument.
- Not claim alone. An abstract assertion with nothing under it is the most common weakness in learner writing, and the one most reliably marked down — an unsupported claim is a weak claim in any room.
The pattern is the same one that makes an argument land in front of an examiner, a professor or a hiring manager: say the thing, then make it real.
The same principle, spoken
In speech, concreteness does something extra that is worth understanding, because it solves a problem most learners are trying to solve the hard way.
Abstract speech is cognitively expensive to produce in real time. You are choosing precise abstract vocabulary while also managing grammar, pronunciation and a clock. That load is what produces the pause in the middle of a phrase — the hesitation that comes from assembling a sentence rather than from thinking about an idea.
Concrete speech offloads it. Describing something you actually remember, you are retrieving rather than constructing: the words are ones you own, the tense is forced on you by the memory, and the structure follows the event. People sound dramatically more fluent describing their grandmother's phone calls than discussing the deterioration of interpersonal communication — and it is the same person, thirty seconds apart.
Our verdict on each of the six
The Heaths' principles are Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories — written for people trying to make an idea spread, not for anyone learning English. So they are not equally useful to you, and it is worth saying plainly which are and which are not.
| Principle | Does it raise a test score? | Does it improve real speaking and writing? |
|---|---|---|
| Concrete | Yes — the most, and through three criteria. Task Response (a supported claim beats an asserted one), Lexical Resource (concrete words are the ones you use precisely), and Fluency (retrieved language costs less to produce than constructed language, so you pause less). | Yes. It is what makes a point survive a meeting, an interview or an email. This is the principle to take whole. |
| Simple | Yes, indirectly. Finding the core of your argument is what Task Response rewards, and it stops you listing four half-ideas where two developed ones would score higher. | Yes. Though note Heath's simple means prioritised, not short — and in an exam, short simple sentences are capped for showing no grammatical range. Simplify the idea, not the syntax. |
| Credible | Partly, and be careful. Concrete detail and plausible reasoning help. Do not invent statistics — examiners are not fact-checking you, so a fabricated figure buys nothing and reads as filler. | Yes. Being believed is most of being persuasive, and specifics are how you earn it. |
| Stories | Yes in speaking, cautiously in writing. A story is ideal for IELTS Part 2 and it forces past tenses and precise nouns out of you. In an academic essay, a narrative is not an argument — use one as evidence, not as structure. | Yes. The most portable persuasive tool there is. |
| Unexpected | No. Skip it. It exists to win attention in a crowded market. An examiner is paid to read every word of your essay, so you are not competing for their attention and a surprising opening earns nothing. | Yes, in a presentation or a pitch — where attention genuinely is scarce. Worth having later; not now. |
| Emotional | Largely no. Academic register asks for reasoned argument, and an emotive appeal tends to read as an unsupported claim. | Yes, in the rooms where persuasion is the point. Keep it out of the essay. |
How to use the book
- Assume you are the tapper. Whatever you have written or said, assume it was less clear than it felt. That feeling of clarity is the curse, not evidence.
- Stop asking "does this sound right to me?" It is the one question your own ear cannot answer, in any language you are still learning.
- Reach down the ladder, not up. When you catch yourself writing various factors contribute to this phenomenon, ask what you would say to a friend. Then write that.
- Attach one picture to every claim. A number, a moment, a person, a thing that happened. Not instead of the claim — under it.
- Notice that the concrete words are the ones you own. That is not a coincidence, and it is the reason this advice is safe as well as good.
Made to Stick is not a book about English, and the Heaths were not thinking about anyone learning a language when they wrote it. But the Curse of Knowledge is the most accurate description we have found of why a second-language writer cannot see their own work clearly — and concreteness is the rare piece of advice that makes your English better and easier at the same time.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Curse of Knowledge?
Once you know something, you cannot imagine not knowing it. It comes from a Stanford study by Elizabeth Newton, in which people tapped the rhythm of famous songs on a table for a listener to identify. Listeners guessed 3 of 120 songs — 2.5% — while the tappers predicted the listeners would get 50% right. The tappers could hear the music in their heads; the listener heard knocking. They were getting through once in forty times and believed it was once in two.
Why is it harder to judge your own writing in a second language?
Because you carry the curse twice. You know what you meant, which is the ordinary problem every writer has — but you also know what the sentence would mean in your first language, and that meaning plays in your head while you read your English back. So a sentence built on your first language's intuitions sounds complete to you, and your reader hears something incomplete. It is the same cognitive fact that makes you unable to hear your own dropped word endings.
Is concrete language too simple for an academic essay?
No, and for a second-language writer it is usually the stronger and the safer choice at once. An abstract sentence — 'various factors contribute to the deterioration of interpersonal communication' — is built entirely from words at the edge of your control, each one a chance to pick the wrong collocation or register, and it leaves the reader nothing to picture. A concrete sentence uses words you already own precisely. Concreteness is not a luxury you earn once you are advanced.
Should I replace my arguments with stories?
No. Concreteness works as the evidence under an abstract claim, not as a substitute for having one. Say the thing, then make it real: state your point, then attach one number, moment or person specific enough to picture. A charming detail with no claim attached is a story rather than an argument, and an abstract claim with nothing under it is the most common weakness in learner writing.
Does being concrete help my speaking as well?
Yes, and for a reason people rarely notice: abstract speech is expensive to produce in real time, because you are choosing precise abstract vocabulary while also managing grammar, pronunciation and a clock — and that load is what produces hesitation in the middle of a phrase. Describing something you actually remember means retrieving language rather than constructing it, so people sound markedly more fluent talking about their grandmother's phone calls than about the deterioration of interpersonal communication.