I did not read the OP as making normative claims, I read the OP as making claims about things that quite possibly could be measured, provided the author stoped

I did not read the OP as making normative claims, I read the OP as making claims about things that quite possibly could be measured, provided the author stoped waving his hands and was specific. For example, the opening two sentences: I try to write using ordinary words and simple sentences. ... That kind of writing is easier to read, and the easier something is to read, the more deeply readers will engage with it. This is a claim suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship between a certain type of writing and a certain behaviour on the part of people who read the article. My feeling is that this claim could be falsifiable, provided the OP got specific about what "ordinary words" are, what "simple sentences" are, and what kind of "engagement" we wish to measure. If he did so, the claim would be falsifiable. And in truth, I'm not going to say that if he did get precise, it would still not be falsifiable. Experience tells me that yes, we can identify cause-and-effect relationships between empirically measurable characteristics of prose and precise engagement metrics. That is exactly the kind of thing that people do when they try to manufacture "clickbait" headlines. But he chose to make these claims without being specific, and to me this is what makes it non-falsifiable, but not normative. JM2C.