Repetition across paragraphs happens when one paragraph makes a point and the next paragraph makes the same point again, often in different words. The reader does not learn anything new, and the response feels longer than it is. Good cohesion means each paragraph has a new job that builds on the one before.
This lesson follows connecting topic sentences with the task in paragraph cohesion.
How do you find repeated ideas?
Changing the words does not remove repetition, so you cannot find it by looking for repeated words alone. Look at the ideas.
- Summarise each paragraph in about five words. For example, “homework builds memory”.
- Compare neighbouring summaries. If two are the same, or one is just a smaller version of the other, you have a repeated idea.
- Check the last sentence of one paragraph against the first sentence of the next. Writers often restate the ending of a paragraph as the opening of the next.
- Decide what to do: merge the two into one stronger paragraph, cut the weaker one, or give the second paragraph a genuinely new job.
Some echo between paragraphs is healthy, because a phrase such as “that habit” can link an idea forward. The test is whether the second paragraph moves on.
Worked example
Here are two adjacent paragraphs from an essay arguing that homework is useful:
Paragraph 1: Homework helps students practise. When students practise at home, they remember lessons better. Practice is important for memory.
Paragraph 2: Practising at home also helps memory. Students who go over their lessons remember them for longer, so homework is useful for remembering.
Step 1, summarise. Paragraph 1: practice helps memory. Paragraph 2: practice helps memory.
Step 2, compare. The summaries match. Paragraph 2 adds nothing except different wording, even though it begins with “also”, which wrongly promises something extra.
Step 3, choose a repair. We will give paragraph 2 a new job: what homework teaches besides memory.
Paragraph 2 (revised): That habit of practising also builds independence. A student who must decide when to start an exercise, and how long to spend on it, learns to manage time without being told. This skill serves them long after the lesson is forgotten.
Paragraph 2 now builds on paragraph 1, because “that habit” refers back to practising, and then moves to a new idea.
The mistake to watch for
The usual slip is fixing repetition by swapping in synonyms.
Rehearsing at home strengthens recall.
This is the same idea as “practising helps memory”, only with new vocabulary.
The reader still meets the point twice. The correction is to change the idea, not the words. Ask, “What does this paragraph say that the last one did not?” If the answer is “nothing”, merge or cut.
Check yourself
1. Give a five-word summary for each paragraph and say whether they repeat. Paragraph A: “Recycling reduces waste in landfills. Less rubbish means less land is needed.” Paragraph B: “Recycling also means fewer landfill sites are needed, since less rubbish is buried.”
Show answer
A: “recycling reduces landfill waste”. B: “recycling reduces landfill sites”. These are the same idea, because fewer sites is just the result of less waste. Merge them into one paragraph, or move B on to a different benefit such as saving materials.
2. The first paragraph ends: “So a later start would make students more alert.” The next begins: “Students would also be more alert with a later start.” What is the problem? How could the second opening change?
Show answer
The second opening restates the last sentence. Change it to build on it: “That alertness would show most clearly in first-lesson results.” Now the paragraph starts from the old point and moves forward.
3. True or false: if two paragraphs use completely different words, they cannot be repetitive.
Show answer
False. Repetition is about the idea, not the vocabulary. Two paragraphs can use different words and still say the same thing.
Where this leads next
The last cohesion skill in this module deals with changes in perspective inside a paragraph. Continue with repair a sudden shift in viewpoint. You can also put two versions of a paragraph side by side in the writing revision compare view and check whether the second one adds something.
It is hard to see repetition in your own work, because every sentence feels necessary when you write it. A teacher in online one-to-one English First Language tuition can ask “what is new here?” at exactly the right moment.