Adjective

If you think adjectives help to decorate a sentence, don't.

Most adjectives are unnecessary, as I learn from Roy Peter Clark and William Zinsser. Thanks to their teaching, I have pruned out the unnecessary words like passionate or enthusiastic or responsible to describe my interns when they ask me to write a referee letter.

Don't just tell people that Jonathan, for instance, is passionate. Show them. And, with that in mind, I wrote, "As every intern attests, it takes good patience to finish an electrocardiogram with our barely functioning machines. As is so often the case in our medical wards, interns frown whenever an electrocardiogram is ordered. Jonathan didn't. He solved the problem by purchasing ECG electrode adhesives out of his own pocket."

Now you see. That intern Jonathan really is passionate.