Top ten list: an editor's pet peeves #3

Repetitious words — make every word count

Writers can get stuck on a word and repeat it to nausea-inducing frequency. It might be a necessary word on occasion, but the repetition can jar the reader.

Three possible solutions:

• Find different words to vary them

• Revise the sentences to eliminate the need for so many of them

• Delete them and discover they weren’t needed at all

  

  Photo by Harold Wijnholds on