Day 241: Use judgment words carefully when appropriate.

On day 237, we discussed avoiding judgment words, i.e., words that express your opinion. Generally, this is good advice. However, you need to ask yourself, “Is my opinion relevant?” Answer this question critically.

For example, if you are writing a letter of complaint, your opinion is NOT productive: stick to the facts. On the other hand, if you are writing a document that is intentionally and clearly an opinion piece, and the reader understands that you are expressing your opinion, then judgment words might be useful to show how you interpret the facts.

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Here’s the caution. If you use judgment words, an astute reader will quickly realize that you are expressing opinions and not facts. This can discredit you as an authority in the subject and give the reader permission to disagree with your ideas—because they are opinions.

We don’t have any hard and fast rule about this, which is why we recommend removing judgment words in general. The best advice I can give you is to use judgment words only when the document is clearly an opinion piece—but avoid them when you want to demonstrate knowledge and persuade your reader.