How to Appear Smart

1) Use phrases like "As Stanley Fish would say...." or "Echoing Louis Menand...".

2) Tell everyone that you're working on your newest exegesis.

3) Graduate from Eastern Washington University.

4) In any discussion of a controversial public figure, pause once, look off into the distance, and say "If only he had his own Maxwell Perkins...."

5) Collect Cheever, then Uncollect Cheever.

6) In the face of lunacy, yell "What this school needs is an Alan Sokal!"

7) Read I Thought a Think.

Hope this helps.