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Communicating Clearly:
It Often Pays to Repeat Information

Updated Feb 2006
Often, when clients read first drafts of the work they've ordered, they'll comment that "you said that once already, so we can take this sentence out." In fact, using a certain amount of redundancy is a good way to make sure that you've communicated clearly.

A business owner and a customer will read a piece of sales literature in very different ways. The business owner is:

• thoroughly familiar with the ideas and information
• reading with 100% attention, to make sure the work is accurate and complete

By contrast, the potential customer who is reading the information is often:

• unfamiliar with, or only partly familiar with, the ideas and concepts involved
• reading with less than full attention
• reading in passive mode—that is, not making any attempt to think about the material or draw conclusions from the facts and inferences

Any of these three conditions can interfere with understanding. For example, when people read with less than full attention, they often miss a point. If the point is a key one, then the full meaning of all the following information will be lost or distorted. In extreme cases, the reader may totally miss the meaning of the communication.

Re-stating key ideas and conclusions helps to keep the reader oriented in the flow of information. Even if the person is reading with less than full attention, the important ideas are more likely to be seen, and the important conclusions to be made.

Repeating important ideas also makes it much easier for the reader to identify what the most important ideas in the communication actually are. If everything is mentioned exactly once, how does the reader decide what's the most important?

Whenever you write for your customers, decide what your main points are, then make sure that they are repeated. That way, chances are much higher that the important information will penetrate the reader's consciousness and be remembered.