Using adverbs in a sentence is a generally bad idea.

Can we agree on that?

As I have already pointed to, using adverbs is unnecessary.

Try an example: “John simply wept despondently.”

What a bunch of garbage that sentence is.

But how about: “John wept.”

Here Steven King compares adverbs to weeds. And I kind of like that comparison.

Because once you let a few stay, well, they tend to multiply.

And the more adverbs there are, the less clear your writing will be.

Someone out there is now accusing me of being tiresome and anal-retentive. I deny it. I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day . . . . fifty the day after that . . . . and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.

-Stephen King, On Writing

Like all creative endeavors, using adverbs – or not – seems subjective.

But I get it.

Leaving adverbs out makes your writing more clear – cleaner.

It’s the difference between flowery prose that we often bog down in and short clean sentences that leave some imagination to the reader.

“Most adverbs are simply unnecessary.“

Or: “Adverbs are unnecessary.”

I mean, why use five words when three will do?

Consider the sentence He closed the door firmly. It’s by no means a terrible sentence (at least it’s got an active verb going for it), but ask yourself if firmly really has to be there. You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between He closed the door and He slammed the door, and you’ll get no argument from me . . . . but what about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before He closed the door firmly? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, isn’t firmly an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?

-Stephen King, On Writing