Geoffrey Pullum, whose scorn for Strunk and White is, or should be by now, widely known, has taken on the beloved William Zinsser as well.
Writing at Language Log about On Writing Well, he examines Mr. Zinsser's advice, "Most adverbs are unnecessary" and "Most adjectives are also unnecessary." He then examines a specimen sentence from On Writing Well, "Again and again in careless writing, strong verbs are weakened by redundant adverbs." It is, he points out, a sentence of thirteen words in which five, nearly 40 percent, are adjectives or adverbs.
He did not, though he might have, pointed out that the sentence is also a passive construction. He saved that rant for the Chronicle of Higher Education, demolishing what he calls Mr. Zinsser's "inconsistent hectoring on the topic of passives," which "is not going to help anybody to write well."
We see similar advice quoted all over the Internet: Mark Twain's "If you see an adverb, kill it" and Stephen King's "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs," or somber endorsements of George Orwell's distaste for the passive voice. Like the schoolroom scolding "Never begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction" and "Never split an infinitive," these straightforward pieces of advice are easily remembered.
In practice, though, they are not much help.
You don't want to write a long series of loosely connected sentences beginning with and unless you wish to sound like a breathless pubescent girl ("And then I told Jamie … And Jamie told Madison … And then Madison called Billy …"). But it seems right and proper that Bishop Andrewes and his fellow translators of the Authorized Version punctuated the first chapter of Genesis with "And God saw that it was good." (Incidentally, did "But" at the beginning of the previous sentence trouble you much?)
Yes, the passive voice can be used duplicitously to evade responsibility ("Mistakes were made"), but it is a perfectly appropriate stylistic tool when the action or object of the action is more important than the actor.
Then, too, you have seen the attempts at fancy writing in which the piling up of adjectives and adverbs is imagined to create an effect of elegance while instead merely achieving turgidity.
The advice at the heart of all these prescriptions is Don't write awkwardly. Getting at that is time-consuming and difficult. You have to look at the sentences, determine the intended meaning and effect, and establish what vocabulary and syntax best accomplish the purpose. Sometimes an adjective will be telling, sometimes mere embroidery. Sometimes the passive voice will achieve the aim more effectively than the active. Sometimes splitting the damn infinitive is the right thing to do; actually, it often is.
You have to show what makes one sentence awkward and another effective. It's simpler and easier for teachers and writing coaches merely to issue oracular oversimplifications.*
You can look for shortcuts to effective writing, but they can be just as likely to lead you astray.
*There is apparently an irresistible tendency to reduce writing and editing to one-sentence maxims.