You know that repetitive sentence starters make for poor writing and, worse, poor reading.
A quick scan down your draft can reveal repeated sentence starters, particularly at the beginning of paragraphs.
With a little more proofreading, you’ll probably find more. Luckily, it’s a pretty easy problem to overcome.
All you need to do is change the words or phrases that you might use too often to start your sentences. But what if your repetition is hiding a little deeper?
Repetitive sentence starters in hiding
Finding different ways to start a sentence is not a problem for any writer. It can be a change of vocabulary, phrase, or grammatical structure.
Here are three variations of a sentence starter, and they all look different. Perfect!
Another thing…
One important point…
It is also worth noting…
But what if you look a bit deeper into each sentence?
Another thing I noticed was that…
One important point I understood was that…
It is also worth noting that I learned it was…
Starting sentences with “I” too often is easy to spot at the beginning of sentences, but here the repetition is hiding in the second clause.
Another form of sentence opening repetition is saying the same thing, but with different words.
Firstly, you should consider…
The next thing to think about is…
In addition, it’s a good idea…
Finally, you need to…
Yes, sometimes you can order advice or information with sequence words.
But if you use sequential phrases too often in a text, you are creating a form of repetition.
Other hiding places to look
Sentence frames can be different, but do they often perform a similar function?
Here are some of the most common phrases we use as frames to start sentences.
The fact that…
It is important to…
One thing to remember is…
In order to…
When it comes to…
As mentioned earlier…
There are many…
It should be noted that…
These aren’t necessarily wrong, because they use different words, so they look like unique sentence starters.
But they can be repetitive in a structural way. If used too often, they can become wasted words.
Reflex sentence starters and paragraph launch pads like these can hide repetition because we often use them automatically.
In fiction writing, starting sentences with nouns is common because it puts the subject directly into the action or description.
Darkness greeted us…
The room was freezing cold…
Silence filled the air…
The locked door stood between us and…
Again, the sentences use a variety of starting words, which is fine. But if sentence structures like these occur too close together, or too often, they can easily become repetitive sentence starters that readers will notice.
Pronouns serve a purpose, but they can easily become an issue if they mean nothing. A good example is “it.”
It is why…
It is also useful to note…
It was then that…
It is worth remembering…
Which examples refer to something already mentioned, and which use ‘it’ simply as a grammatical placeholder?
When ‘it’ is just a grammatical placeholder, as in numbers 2 and 4 above, it might be a hint that you could start the sentence more directly.
What’s also useful to note…
Remember that…
Repetition in sentences is not only the first words
Using different phrasing frames to start sentences is one of the easiest ways to avoid repetitive sentence starters.
Yet if the main part of your sentences follows the same pattern, you can still have hidden repetition.
Our energetic dog chased the squirrel through the garden before it escaped up a tree.
Maria carefully opened the old window at the back of the house.
The violent storm severely damaged the roof during the night.
Scientists recently discovered a remarkable new species deep in the rainforest.
While these sentences might look quite different, they all use the same basic subject-verb-object structure.
Our dog → chased → the squirrel
Maria → opened → the window
The storm → damaged → the roof
Scientists → discovered → a new species
Even if you use different opening words or phrases, the repetition can be hiding in the structure of the main part of the sentence.
If you notice this in your writing, you might have to rewrite a sentence or two with a different structure.
Perhaps like this:
During the night, the roof was severely damaged by a violent storm.
Moving the time phrase to the beginning and changing the sentence from active to passive puts more emphasis on the roof than the storm.
You certainly don’t need to do this with every sentence you find that follows a similar pattern to those around it. But it does highlight how you can break up repeated patterns within sentences.
Summary
Any form of unintentional repetition in writing is worth looking at when you revise a first draft, or more importantly when editing.
In these examples, the repetition is not as obvious as in other forms of repetitive writing.
You certainly don’t need to lose sleep over it, but it is a form of repetition that can sneak in without you noticing.
The most obvious problem is repetitive sentences that start with the same word or phrase. These are easy to spot and fix.
But keep in mind that the same repetition problem can be hiding in the second part of your sentences.
Related Reading: Invisible Repetition In Writing And How To Find And Fix It
English teacher, writer, and author. Passionate about grammar, creative writing, and self-publishing. Always exploring new tools and tech to help writers succeed.
