Says nothing (SN)

Avoid “spinning your wheels” in an essay. If the sentence doesn’t make a concrete, specific, argumentative point, leave it out!

“Effectively,” “in essence,” “essentially,” and “as such” are often meaningless filler phrases.

Don’t tell me that “It is interesting how ….” What exactly is significant about the moment/passage/character? For what reason(s) is it significant? Turn the answer into an argumentative point. Your goal is to pique your reader’s interest, not to tell your reader that you found something interesting; doing the latter is to draw attention to your own thinking process (the preliminary phase of the essay-writing process, in which you generate insights that must then be processed and organized into an argument).

Likewise, don’t tell me that “It is important that” something happen. Convince me through evidence and analysis that the point is important.

If you are analyzing or discussing verse, saying that a line “flows more smoothly” says nothing concrete about the versification. Instead, deploy your knowledge of meter, aural effects, and rhetorical devices to explain how the line is structured and/or balanced.