You should strive to be nuanced and thoughtful in your writing. But filling your prose (or your speech) with junk like This rather shocking piece is sort of the antithesis of Crewdson’s original project is not the way to do it. People want to use qualifying phrases (rather, sort of, etc.) to hedge their bets or to prove that their argument is complex. In fact, qualifiers dilute the power of your argument. Show your readers the refinement of your thinking by putting together a series of strong sentences that express that refinement, not by hemming and hawing.