: Colorfulness of Language Vs. Simplicity In school I've always been taught to use colorful adjectives/verbs in writing. I recently wrote a blog on Medium and sent it to a couple friends, they

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What strikes me on reading your opening paragraph is that you have a dozen abstract nouns and no concrete ones.

Somewhere in the transition from print to electronica, our news-generating process broke down. Today, we have in place an incentive system that awards viewership, and thus revenue, on grounds of ethical flexibility over journalistic integrity. It is a process that subverts the underpinnings of good reporting — accuracy, objectivity, and impartiality for practically all things pursuant to clicks and shares.

There's nothing concrete here — nothing I can see in my mind's eye. Imagine your first line were something like Gone is the age when printers arranged the news in little blocks of lead. Okay, it's hardly an inspiring first line — but do you see how all of a sudden there's an element the reader can picture? I can see little blocks of lead, in a way that I can't see the abstract idea of 'flexibility' or 'underpinnings'.

Are you getting the difference? Concrete nouns slip more easily into your reader's brain. They're much, much easier to latch on to.

Abstract nouns are important — they help you express complex, interesting ideas — but your writing will be strongest with a balance. If your first three sentences contain seventeen (seventeen!) different abstract nouns, and no concrete ones, there's a good chance your reader's eyes will glaze over. But if you understand this, you can write better.

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Depending on the setting, the writer can use a conversational tone as a goal.
The sentence probably needs work if it sounds pretentious when spoken aloud, or requires a deep breath to get through.
Write with the reader in mind. However, even when the presumed audience is highly educated, readers are likely to prefer clarity over "fancy" language.

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It boils down to balance between primitive and pretentious. Both are bad, but unless you are a simpleton, it's easier to fall into pretentious than boorish.

The rule to avoid this is simple: if a simpler word carries exactly the same meaning as the elaborate one, pick the simple one. If you need a phrase (two simpler words or more) to simplify the more elaborate word, use the more elaborate one.

Regardless, make completely sure the word you use means exactly what you want it to mean. There's not many faster ways to make an ass of yourself than by using a wrong elaborate word.

I'll bold the good uses of words that replaced simpler alternatives correctly, and correct the wrong uses. Of course this is subjective, and the border is blurred, but you can get the rough clue where you went wrong.

Somewhere in the transition from print to electronica, our news generating process broke down. Today, we have in place an incentive systems that awardsrewards viewership, and ergothus ad revenue, on grounds of ethical flexibility over journalistic integrity. It is process that subverts the underpinnings of good reporting — accuracy, objectivity, and impartiality for practically all things
pursuant todriving the clicks and shares.

In the last couple years, we have been besetbombarded with stories about Trump demagoguery and phone/tablet/TV releases where the only distinguishable improvementvisible advance is the 2mm curvature / reduction in thickness from the previous. When I open my news app, it feels like I’m trapped in some microcosm of myopiashort-sightedness — article after articles of political idiocy, and celebrity banality. So what has changed?

Some highlights:

misuse of awards. The system doesn't give viewership as a prize. It gives a prize for viewership.
Good use of subverts the underpinnings. Simplification of that would be roughly two times as long.
I'm not adamant about beset. It feels a little archaic to me, but that's just my personal impression.
It feels like distinguishable improvement could be improved.
Microcosm is a nice metaphor, but not being a native speaker, I had to look up Myopia. That's deterrent.

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