Detect close-proximity repetition — the same word reused within a configurable window of N other words. An editor's tool for catching unintentional echoes.
Built and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software
Use the repeated-words finder when editing fiction, essays, or any prose where close repetition reads as a stylistic mistake. Particularly powerful for technical writers who unconsciously reuse jargon.
Word Frequency surfaces *what* is overused; Repeated Words surfaces *where* the repetition is too close. Use both when editing.
The finder records every position of every content word in the text, then surfaces pairs of occurrences that fall within a configurable window (default 50 words).
It excludes function words (the, of, and) by default since they're expected to repeat constantly.
Results are sorted by closest distance — the word with the tightest repetition is on top.
Default 50 words catches paragraph-level repeats. Use 20 for sentence-level only; 100 for page-level.
Short words are usually function words (the, of, and) that repeat constantly. Min length 4 filters them out by default.
Yes — for emphasis, parallelism, or anaphora. The tool flags candidates; you decide.
Input
"The garden was beautiful. The garden bloomed early. The garden smelled sweet."
Output
"garden" used 3 times — closest pair just 4 words apart.
"Garden" is repeated within a tight window. A copy editor would diversify: "the plot", "the beds", "the borders".
This tool looks for the same word recurring close together rather than for words that are common overall. That distinction is the point. A word used thirty times across a long document is usually invisible; the same word twice in one sentence is a stumble the reader notices, even when they could not say why.
Close repetition is one of the most reliable signals of a draft that has not been read aloud, and it is one of the easiest problems to fix once seen, which is a good ratio for an automated check.
Not every close repeat is a defect. Deliberate anaphora — repeating an opening word across successive clauses — is a rhetorical device. Technical terms must repeat, because substituting a synonym for a defined term introduces an ambiguity that reads as a different thing.
The repeats worth fixing are incidental: the same ordinary verb or adjective reused within a sentence or two by accident. Those are almost always improved by changing one of them, and almost never by changing both.
% content words vs. function words.
Text analysisVocabulary variety — type‑token ratio.
Text analysisTotal + per‑word syllable counts.
Text analysisHighlight passive sentences in your writing.