redundancy-checker

# Redundancy Checker ## What This Skill Does Scans a draft for repeated ideas, redundant phrases, and unnecessary word clusters, then delivers a flagged report and a tightened version of the text without altering meaning or voice. ## When To Use This Skill - When a piece is over its word count and you need cuts that do not hurt the reporting - When a reader or editor has said the copy "feels padded" or "goes in circles" but hasn't specified where - Before submitting a long-form feature, investigation, or script to a commissioning editor for the first time - When reviewing your own draft after time away and want a systematic redundancy audit rather than impressionistic re-reading ## What You Need To Provide **Required:** The full text of the article, script, or document you want checked. **Optional:** Target word count or percentage reduction goal; any sections marked as deliberately repetitive for rhetorical effect (a refrain in a documentary narration, for example) that should be left unchanged. ## How the Assistant Approaches This 1. Reads the entire text before flagging anything, building a map of ideas, arguments, and phrases to identify repetition across the whole piece, not just within individual sentences. 2. Identifies three types of redundancy: (a) **phrase-level** — word clusters where one word does the work of several (for example, "at this point in time" instead of "now"); (b) **sentence-level** — sentences that repeat information already established earlier; ...