He confessed that they had only slept three hours when they formulated that plan.Įven if you’re not following a strict style guide, it’s often beneficial to try revising sentences to avoid using “that” too redundantly.He confessed that that plan had been formulated on three hours of sleep.For example, at BKA, we use Associated Press Style, which requires sentences to be constructed in a manner that eliminates consecutive uses of “that.” These sentences can be grammatically correct but stylistically undesirable. When you’re trimming unnecessary uses of “that” from your writing, be sure to pay attention to sentences where it appears multiple times or even twice in a row (“that that”). Neither of them was particularly excited about the compromise ( that) they reached.You also can usually omit “that” if it precedes a simple relative clause. She admitted begrudgingly that she might have contributed to the plant’s demise.The kids also said this morning that a television break would enhance their studying.However, it’s usually better to keep “that” if other words fall between the verb and the dependent clause. She insisted she wasn’t responsible for the houseplant’s untimely death.The children claimed an ice cream break would help them study more effectively.Usually, you can drop “that” if it follows a verb that essentially means “to say.” This omission mimics natural speech and shouldn’t change the meaning of the sentence. To decide whether you can omit “that” from a sentence, check how naturally and intelligibly the sentence reads without it. If you’re in doubt, include it, since this does less harm than incorrectly omitting it. You also should use “that” if a sentence would sound awkward without it. He enthusiastically declared that he would stop procrastinating tomorrow.If you’re a native speaker, you can probably intuitively identify many of these verbs. “That” additionally should appear after certain verbs, such as contend, estimate and point out. The notion that their project would be finished by the original deadline was laughable.She said that although the sunrise workout sounded like a brilliant idea, sleeping in also sounded good.“That” also should be used before clauses that clarify a noun. This word frequently attaches dependent clauses to independent clauses, and it is strictly necessary if a clause begins with certain subordinating conjunctions, such as before, while and in addition to. When to Use ‘That’ in a Sentenceįirst, it’s important to know when “that” is really needed in a sentence. To help you avoid similar grief, today I’d like to share a few tips for avoiding overusing “that” and using “that” in a sentence correctly. While phasing out “like” was pretty simple, removing unnecessary uses of “that” from my writing proved challenging because this word legitimately belongs in many sentences. It was basically my new, written version of “like.” I thought I was succeeding on this front for years, until I started doing freelance writing assignments for a client who wasn’t a fan of superfluous words, including “that.” Then, I learned just how guilty I was of overusing the word “that” in my writing. For a few years during elementary school, virtually every sentence my friends and I uttered included the word “like.” This awful speech habit led to plenty of well-deserved ridicule, which made me determined to stop overusing unnecessary words.
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