Elevating Your Diction

Eliminate colloquial language
Eliminate slang
Eliminate vague adjectives/adverbs
Eliminate feeling words
Eliminate over-explaining; don’t talk down to your audience.
Eliminate platitudes/cliches/metaphors.
Do elevate language to precise words, but do not just thesaurusize (should totally be a word).
Use language that shows a sophisticated understanding of vocabulary. This may (and most often will) require specialized vocabulary of your topic.