Saying the same thing different ways three times may or not may be some secret formula for high school essays, but it boosted her grades significantly when she started following it.

That advice didn’t come from nowhere. 

Saying things on repeat is how we emphasize their importance.

Repeating the same idea over and over again gives it weight in the mind of the reader.

Ideas ad naseum might be stylistically clunky, but making multiple passes with the point across the audience, bluntly or otherwise, makes sure that it sticks.

I bring this up because I have been reading through my past posts on this site and trying to tiptoe around retreading old ground in new writing… but that is probably not a great idea.  

Avoiding repeating the same idea has a big negative side effect: it assumes that I got it perfectly right the first time I wrote about it. It assumes I have nothing more to say to refine the idea. It assumes that everyone understood it on the first attempt.

All that is to add, if something you read here seems familiar then maybe that’s on purpose.