Dilution Effect

Tell an employer a candidate graduated with honours and volunteers at a shelter. The impression is strong. Now add: he also collects stamps, owns a dog, and once worked in a bakery. Strangely, the impression weakens — though nothing negative was added.

This is dilution: irrelevant information does not merely add nothing; it averages the strong facts down. The mind forms impressions by blending, and blending excellent with ordinary produces mediocre.

It works in arguments too. The lawyer with three strong points who adds four weak ones does not strengthen the case — she waters it. The listener's mind averages the seven.

So in your resume, your presentation, your defence at home: cut. Two strong reasons stated plainly outweigh two strong reasons buried under six filler ones. Addition is not always addition. Sometimes every extra sentence is a subtraction in disguise.