Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

34Ditch Adverbs, Except When They Adjust the Meaning

Most writers use adverbs gratuitously, tossing them into text when they really aren't necessary. And so they stand around without much of a role to play, like too many players on a ball field. They add bloat to the field (or your sentence) and pretty soon they get cut from the roster.

I admit that I like adverbs a lot, and I'm probably guilty of using them a bit too much. So I've tried to figure out when adverbs are useful and when they are not. Here's what I've come to: in at least two situations using an adverb makes sense; in at least one, sidestepping them completely makes even more sense. (I'll outline those situations at the end of this rule.)

First, though … what's an adverb again? You probably remember from English composition (or if you're like me, from Schoolhouse Rock animated shorts on Saturday mornings) that an adverb describes more fully what's going on with the words around it. An adverb often (but not always) ends in ly—gratuitously and really in the first sentence on this page are examples. Or to quote Schoolhouse Rock:

Suppose your house needs painting.

How are you going to paint it? That's where the adverb comes in.

We can also give you a special intensifier so you can paint it very neatly or rather sloppily …

In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, author Stephen King rails against the unfortunate adverb:

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been ...