ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

Turn the repeated word into a question

Turning the repeated word or phrase at the start of the second paragraph into a question raises an eyebrow of doubt or irony.

Many of the EFF's critics predicted this from the start. The move to Washington in the first place was fiercely controversial among its on-line constituency, whose members worried that the organization would lose touch with its cultural roots.
     Cultural roots? It may be hard to imagine something as amorphous and all-included as cyberspace having either roots or a culture. But it does. The chief principle of this culture—decentralization—comes from the structure of the Internet, at present cyberspace's main incarnation. The Internet has no real governing body, no real shape, and almost no rules. It is nothing more than a common language by which computers can talk to each other.

In a country with no more arable land than Holland, Egypt has close on 60m people, half of them under 21. True, Egypt's economic indicators are bright—"a vibrant economy" is the current official phrase—but economists reckon that it would take a sustained growth rate of 7% or more to soak up the new job-seekers.
     Vibrant? With the help of American development aid, parts of the country's infrastructure have been transformed: the telephones miraculously work, there is an electricity surplus, and a new metro system may, eventually, ease serious permanent traffic jams. But investors in Egypt have still to plough through a hideous quagmire of laws, regulations and bureaucracy.

Note how the second paragraphs, without the questions, would have a flat start. The questions thus link the paragraphs and enliven the prose.

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