Repeating yourself is also a very good example of how written natural language and spoken natural language are very different beasts.<p>If you look at good, effective oratory style, and write it down, it looks totally horrible. One of the major differences is more repetition. When all the words are present, written down on a page, it's easy to go back and re-read. People can also go along at their own pace, make sure they understand before moving on, and are generally more in control of their experience.<p>In spoken language, the opposite is true. You have one chance to express yourself, and you have to make sure it's successful, despite the listening abilities of the audience. So while written language favors variation of vocabulary, because the same word repeated a dozen times stands out as bad style, spoken language uses it as a basic tool of getting a point across.<p>When I deliver presentations, I insert tons of back-references, repeating previous points or conclusions. When using powerpoint, I also insert a lot of forward-references, giving a brief outline of the topics to be immediately covered. I generally try to mimic how, if I were reading an equivalent paper, I would be flipping back through the pages or how I would have to read something a second time to understand it.<p>At the lower level, even sentences are allowed to repeat themselves a lot more in speech than in writing. Where a written story may use a pronoun, speech is more likely to repeat the full noun for emphasis. You can also use the trick of repeating a phrase with different vocal characteristics to emphasize it, which simply doesn't translate into writing without being awkward.