I’ve just finished reviewing a number of research grant applications. One of the things I noticed, and not in a good way, was that writers very often repeated themselves. That is, I not only read the same sentences, but also entire paragraphs and in some instances several paragraphs, in the answers to different questions.

Now, this wasn’t what I was looking for in evaluating these applications. I was actually looking at the research problem and its ‘real world’ significance, connections with other scholarly work, the research design and the resources applied for. But the repetition of the exact same words, often up to three times in the same application, left an impression. And not in a good way.

I sometimes see this kind of repetition in papers too. The abstract is the same as some of the paper itself, usually the introduction. And again, while this is not what I am looking for when reviewing a paper, the verbal duplication leaves me, well, out of sorts.

Let me reassure you here. As a reviewer I rarely comment on recurring text. I try hard not to let it interfere with the judgements that really do matter. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t noticed and the echo of text past hasn’t oriented me somewhat negatively to the rest of what I have to read. ( And I am trying to avoid the send-in-the-clones jokes in this post.)

Of course I understand that there are overlaps in grant application questions. And of course a paper abstract does have to be a mini-me of the paper. But déjà vu isn’t likely to be the response that writers were hoping for from their evaluative reader.

Reader déjà vu is rarely A Good Thing. The academic reader may wonder if the writer is stuck, lazy, or can only think about their text in this one way. Has the writer just gone, “Oh I’ve got some words I made earlier that will work here?”  In response to déjà vu, the grant application reader may stop to see whether the writer has failed to see the differences between the questions they have been asked to complete. And the paper reviewer might focus on whether the writer is missing the opportunity to go further in their thinking.

A caveat. Yes, not all readers object to repetition. Perhaps some readers really don’t mind slabs of text they’ve already encountered. But as a paper and grant writer, you can’t know that’s who you’ll get as a reviewer. It’s surely better to anticipate that your reader may be someone who does notice reiteration and responds poorly. (And I am trying to avoid indigestion jokes here too.)

There’s an inevitable point to my writing about repetition. Academic writers often DO need to write much the same thing in different words using different syntax. (I’m not talking here about writing about the same research for different audiences. I’m talking only about writing within a single piece – the bid or paper being just two examples.) Restating is integral to academic argument. For example, the conclusion of a paper often recaps the way the paper began. And there may be elements of the conclusion rehearsed in the introduction. Book chapters often reprise the main points that have been made in order to set up the moves to the next chapter. So you need to be able to textually manage the replay.

But relax. There is a simple strategy to avoid RRI – Reader Replication Irritation. Look carefully at anywhere you have cut and pasted text from one section of an application or paper to another section. Ask yourself whether the section could be something other than a rerun. Is there something you could do instead? Could you summarise or paraphrase? Is there another way to present the same content if you have decided it really is the same?  Can you remix and renew rather than just repeat?