Avoiding Purple Prose
Whether the text is free of ornate, purely decorative phrasing that carries no actual information or judgment about the work
The five levels
Each anchor describes what separates one level from the next — not a general description of quality. This is the text the evaluator itself reads.
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Level 1 Below Standard
Most of the text is beautiful but unverifiable phrasing ("indescribable magic", "creativity beyond imagination")
Example A full paragraph about the work's "magnificence" without naming a single detail in it
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Level 2 Approaching
Recurring ornate phrases interspersed through a text that does also carry real content
Example A precise analytical sentence followed by "it takes you on a magical journey" adding nothing
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Level 3 At Standard
One or two limited ornate phrases, the rest of the text substantive
Example A short ornate opening then the rest of the critique is analysis and evidence with no filler
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Level 4 Above Standard
The text is practically free of filler; every sentence carries information, judgment, or evidence
Example No single sentence could be removed without the text actually losing meaning
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Level 5 Exemplary
Language that is economical and exact throughout; the beauty lies in the precision of observation and argument, not stylistic ornamentation
Example A short sentence that describes a detail and judges it together with not one wasted word
Where does your own work sit on these levels?
Submit one work to be read against this criterion alone: your position across the five levels, why you are not higher and why not lower, three literal quotes from your own work, and one exercise with its success check. Your first card is free.
Price: 7 SAR · Included in Pro & Artist Plus · First one free — Pricing details
Read my work by this criterionOther criteria in the same art
Whether every evaluative judgment is paired with a specific pointer to an actual location or detail in the work that grounds it
The five levels →How clearly the critique distinguishes "what is in the work" (description) from "my opinion of it" (judgment), rather than blurring them in one undifferentiated sentence
The five levels →How closely the work's details the critic describes (color, shape, composition, word, rhythm) match what is actually present in the work
The five levels →Whether the critique goes past the first impression to uncover relationships or causes not obvious on the surface, rather than stopping at surface-level description
The five levels →The critic's distinction between "what is seen in the work" and "what it is presumed to mean or symbolize", and whether the move from the first to the second is signalled
The five levels →Whether the critic's judgments hold together across the text, rather than contradicting themself evaluating the same element or equivalent elements
The five levels →Whether evidentiary grounding is sustained throughout the text, rather than concentrated in one paragraph while the rest of the critique is unmoored judgment
The five levels →The critic's use of the discipline's own terms (composition, rhythm, contrast, plot, maqam...) with their precise conventional meaning in that art, rather than as loose metaphor
The five levels →