Avoiding Repetitious Writing

“All students should always include citations for their textual evidence, and every pupil must always include whom and where the fact or idea was found, and everyone in our editing group ought to do that as well,” advised Melanie. “Each writer need to always include these proper credits in their essays,” she advised.

“Good reminders, Melanie, but we students will have to always exclude you from our peer editing group unless you get rid of your repetitious writing.”

Definition and Examples

Repetitious writing involves repeating the same ideas, words or synonyms of those words, and sentence structure. Refer to the dialogue above for the following examples:

• Ideas‒Examples: “citations for their textual evidence,” “whom and where the fact or idea was found,” “proper credits”
• Words or Phrases‒Examples: “always include”
• Subjects‒Examples: “students,” “pupil,” “our editing group,” and “writer”
• Predicates and Verb Forms‒Examples: “should,” “must,” “ought to,” need to”, “have to”
• Modifiers‒Examples: “All,” “every,” “everyone,” “each”

Read the rules.

• Don’t repeat ideas.
• Don’t overuse the same or synonymous words and phrases.
• Vary sentence structure in terms of subject-verb-object pattern; types of sentences (simple, complex, compound, compound-complex) or (declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory); and sentence length.

Practice

Write the sentences and [bracket] the repetitious writing.

1. I like that idea because the concept is a brilliant thought.
2. None of the athletes were ready, and not one of them had prepared.
3. That’s a crazy thing to say, and that certainly requires an apology.
4. I went shopping. I left. I came home. It had been an exhausting day.
5. Don’t go there. Leave her alone, and stop pestering her. She will come back when she can.

Revise the repetitious writing in this sentence.

Every student should always avoid repetitious writing and each pupil must refrain in all cases.

Answers

1. I like that [idea] because the [concept] is a brilliant [thought].
2. [None] of the athletes were [ready], and [not one] of them had [prepared].
3. [That’s] a crazy thing to say, and [that] certainly requires an apology.
4. [I went shopping.] [I left.] [I came home.] It had been an exhausting day.
5. [Don’t go there.] [Leave her alone,] and [stop pestering her.] She will come back when she can.

Differentiate your essay instruction inthis comprehensive writing curriculum with remedial writing worksheets, including sentence structure, grammar, thesis statements, errors in reasoning, and transitions.

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Mark Pennington, M.A. Reading Specialist

Thirty-six years teaching ELA and reading, elementary through community college, plus district reading specialist. He wrote every program on this site.

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