I saw this the other day.
Problem:
No hyphen should appear in this phrase.
Explanation:
When an adverb, such as “poorly”, that ends in L-Y together with another word, such as the past participle “written”, occur before and modify a noun, no hyphen should appear between the -ly adverb and the other word that together form a compound word.
This is in contrast to adverbs that do not end in L-Y.
For example, a “well-written piece” — with a hyphen between “well” and “written” — is correct.
I tried to compare “poorly-written piece” — with the hyphen — to “poorly written piece” — without the hyphen — in Google, but I did not determine how to force Google to retain the hyphen in the requested search for the hyphenated phrase, even though I put the quotation marks around the hyphenated phrase.
If you know how to force Google to retain punctuation — such as a hyphen — in a search phrase, then please contact me. Thanks!
Solution:
“poorly written piece”