From the course: Writing with Flair: How to Become an Exceptional Writer

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Word echoes

Word echoes

From the course: Writing with Flair: How to Become an Exceptional Writer

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Word echoes

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- Here's another popular journalism concept, it's called word echoes. A word echo is basically a repetition of the same substantive word in proximity. It could be that the same word occurs in two sentences that follow each other or even worse, within the same sentence. We say it creates an echo when this happens. It's something considered ugly, or at least inelegant in journalistic writing, right. The good news is that getting rid of word echoes is almost always possible to do with a combination of sense and creativity. To show you how ugly word echoes are first, have a look at this totally made up example of one. China last week reported a $10 billion trade deficit, the first trade deficit China has reported in five years. Now that's pretty horrible, isn't it? First, where are the word echoes? Well, we've got China twice, we've got reported twice, and we've got trade deficit twice. All in the same sentence. Recognize first, that this is inelegant. You have to first get some kind of…

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