Avoid Intensifiers in Your Writing

What’s an intensifier? It’s a “linguistic element used to give emphasis or additional strength to another word or statement.”1 Intensifiers can be various parts of speech: adverbs (clearly), adjectives (blatant), participles (raving), and more.

Common intensifiers are “clearly, “blatantly,” and “very.”  At the Michigan Bar Journal (August 2017) Wayne Schiess explains the downside of using intensifiers and offers many alternatives for making your point. This article is the best one I’ve seen on the subject.

You can access the article here.

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