Lecture to adverbs and adjectives. In this lecture, you will learn how to identify adverbs and adjectives in your writing, and how to remove unnecessary usage. It's not the purpose of this course to identify each and every part of the sentence. But we do need to know and understand how some words are used to modify verbs and nouns. such words are intended to expand the meaning of the other words that we use, but often they are just not necessary. Even worse, overuse of adverbs and adjectives in prose looks amateurish, and can get in the way of telling the story, which of course is our primary goal.

So before we move on, let's define adjectives and adverbs. an adjective is a word used to modify a noun or qualify it. Examples are an old tree, a White House, or a beautiful girl. an adverb is that part of speech that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, or an entire sentence. Good examples are quickly, really, and very. A very common default for new writers is to use too many adjectives and adverbs.

As with many of the rules applied to writing prose, it's not always useful to apply them too rigidly. adjectives definitely have their places and adverbs less so. Often, the addition of search words indicate to the reader that the Right is new to the game of writing and simply writing in a way that they consider to be somehow literary. Always remember that the object of the exercise is to move the story along with strong words simply arranged. For example, instead of writing this, he ran horridly across the dangerous highway. We could write this, he sprinted across the highway.

Sprinted means the same as running quickly, and it gives the impression a better impression that he was running quickly. highways are inherently dangerous, so the adjective is not needed. The writer intended to tell the reader how dangerous situation is that any reader with imagination will understand by reading shorter and stronger sentence. The situation described before the action would provide the motivation for the act of running across the highway and also provide attention required. Is the man being pursued by someone trying to hurt him? Or is he running towards someone trying to keep them from danger.

Another example, instead of this, she ate the sandwich quickly. We could write this. She devoured the sandwich. If so much stronger verb and indicates that she is starving or haven't eaten for a long time. If we wrote this, she gobble the sandwich, which I agree is not too pretty. It could indicate that she was simply in a hurry.

She could also work The sandwich down. The use of any of these examples depends on the context on the situation and the surrounding pros. What happens before and what will happen afterwards. Try to avoid extremes. Too many adjectives and adverbs will give you a prose, a purple tint. Purple prose is very flowery, ornate, and generally wordy and it distracts from the story that you're trying to tell.

It doesn't move it on. It tends to be written by beginners, in an attempt to see more literary than they are. Where possible cut out the adjective or adverb and use a better noun or verb instead. A simple example maybe instead of writing a wealthy man could write a magnet or a millionaire. Instead of writing walked slowly, we could use the word dawdled, which means the same thing. And in fact, it gives a better meaning of somebody walking along, maybe not caring where they're walking, maybe they're absent minded, they're thinking of something else.

Or maybe they're just lazy. Often, you can simply put out an adjective all together. And this is the strategy favored by great writers such as Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway. In this example, instead of writing leafy tree, we could just write a tree unless it's wintertime or the tree is dead, which you would indicate in another part of the prose. Trees are leafy. So the word is redundant for any Want to cry?

They must feel pretty pathetic. So the word is redundant. Here are some guidelines for avoiding adverbs. Stay away from adverbs. Let's state the obvious. An example maybe whispering softly.

To whisper is to speak softly. whispering is soft. So using the word softly just repeats the obvious. It's not necessary. When you spot an adverb, rewrite the sentence without it, it will definitely be better. Only use an adverb, if it's strictly necessary, and you can't convey the same meaning without it.

And while passing, make it one of your goals to never use the words very or really carefully edit your prose Eliminate adjectives and adverbs. But be careful to keep the ones that convey exactly the precise meaning that you want to express. applying these simple rules will improve your writing instantly. Here's a short list of the most overused adjectives. And here's a list of overused adverbs. As you can see most of them and then Li.

Neither list is exhaustive. There are many, many more and you will soon become proficient at rooting them out in your own work. In the next lecture, we're going to look at active and passive writing exactly what it is and which you should use in which situation