All rules

Repeated phrasing

ngram-repetitionon by default (info)Japanese / English

The same phrase used over and over, so nothing new seems to be said

Example

Flagged
We listen to our customers. In product design we listen to our customers. In our stores we listen to our customers. On the phone we listen to our customers.
What chaff prints
1:1 "We listen to our customers" appears 4 times (limit 3)
Fixed
We listen to our customers. Regulars try every prototype, and store staff ask shoppers what they thought.
What chaff prints
no finding
chaff.yaml used for this example
rules: ngram-repetition: strict

The rule measures the whole document, so this example was tried with an ordinary passage (about 200 words) after it that gives chaff nothing to report.

How to fix

Rephrase the repeats, or say it once. If what repeats is an organisation or product name, list it under names in chaff.yaml and it is not counted.

Why it matters

The same phrasing again and again reads as nothing new being said. Counted on runs of whole words in English and of characters in Japanese. Bracketed tags, link text and symbols that a listing repeats on every entry are not the writer's phrasing, and are not counted.

What it does not flag

Tags, link text and symbols that a listing repeats on every entry, and the words around a repeated name, are not counted. A term made only of nouns and adjectives ("the federal funds rate") is not a phrasing and is not counted. The answers in a FAQ are counted one question at a time. A phrase found only in the first sentence of sections (each section's template opening) is not counted, nor the fixed ending a Japanese notice closes each listed amendment with (〜ものとすること。), nor one found only in numbered item titles that a paragraph follows ((1) ... amendment of the provision on ...). Short documents are not measured.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: ngram-repetition — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax ngram-repetition --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: ngram-repetition: off
Technical details
Layer
L1
Status
stable
Severity
info
Languages
Japanese and English
Suited to
blog, business, technical, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

strictup to 3 uses of the same phrase
normalup to 5 uses of the same phrase
relaxedup to 9 uses of the same phrase

By genre

Runs by default in
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, docs/manual, docs/faq, academic/paper, speech/address
Turned off by the genre in
legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/glossary, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/transcript

Genres

Message

"{word}" appears {count} times (limit {limit})

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/ngram-repetition.yaml