Avoid Repetition

A common style problem is using the same word too much.

Example

There are many children who have to work at cotton fields because the children’s household does not make much money. For example, in India, about 88% of the people working at cotton fields are children, from 6-14 years old. About 60% of the children are able to go to school at first, but they are forced to quit and have to work at the cotton fields (“Cotton industry and child labor,” n.d.). In addition, 78% of these children are…

Option 1: Use a pronoun

• Cats are cute. Cats are small
• Cats are cute. They are small

Option 2: Join sentences and delete the subject

This also helps improve short sentences.

• Cats are cute. Cats are small
• Cats are cute and small

Option 3: Use other words that mean the same

• e.g. Tokyo = “here”, or “the city”
• e.g. think = “consider” or “ponder”

Option 4: Use “these”, “those”

• There are 14 shops in my area, and 12 of the shops are open today
• There are 14 shops in my area, and 12 of those are open today

Option 5: “of which”, “of whom”

• There are 14 shops in my area, and 12 shops are open today
• There are 14 shops in my area, 12 of which are open today
• There are 14 teachers in my area, and two teachers are retiring soon.
• There are 14 teachers in my area, two of whom are retiring soon.

Example, fixed

There are many children who have to work at cotton fields because their household does not make much money. For example, in India, about 88% of the people working at cotton fields are minors, from 6-14 years old. About 60% of those are able to go to school at first, but they are forced to quit and have to work at the cotton fields (“Cotton industry and child labor,” n.d.). In addition, 78% of themare…

Exceptions

• Keywords:
  • “This paragraph outlines three problems - pollution, child labour, and poverty. The first problem is pollution.”
  • “In summary there are three problems - pollution, child labour, and poverty - of which the most serious is pollution.”
  • “This paragraph defines child poverty. Child poverty is…”
• Some kinds of style
  • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness” — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities”
  • There are the main issues with this: failure to protect animals, failure to protect the environment, and failure to protect workers.
  • We will talk about what happened, what this will cause, and what we can do about it.

Task

• Try it yourself
• The phrase “cotton fields” is also used too much in the text above - can you fix it?