To avoid repeating "one"

Question

In my technical writings, I have a lot of instruction lists that describe how to use "something" under different circumstances. To avoid repetition of the subject, I replace it with "one", but it doesn't resolve the fact of the repetition itself.

A very childish example:

• If you want to look offensive, wear a red shirt.
• If you want to look fresh, wear a white one.
• When you are in doubt, wear a green one.
• If you are worried that the shirt might become dirty very quickly, wear a black one.

"one", "one", "one". Three times. What is the way to fix such a repeating without breaking the consistency? By breaking the consistency I mean something illogical, like this:

• If you want to look offensive, wear a red shirt.
• If you want to look fresh, wear a white shirt.
• When you are in doubt, wear a green one.
• If you are worried that a shirt might become dirty very quickly, wear a black one.

Answer 1

Instead of

• If you want to look offensive, wear a red shirt.
• If you want to look fresh, wear a white one.
• When you are in doubt, wear a green one.
• If you are worried that the shirt might become dirty very quickly, wear a black one.

You could introduce some variations like:

• If you want to look offensive, wear a red shirt.
• If you want to look fresh, wear a white one.
• When you are in doubt, go with green.
• If you are worried that the shirt might become dirty very quickly, try black instead.

This breaks the monotony of the repetitions without changing the meaning.

Answer 2

My personal view is that the repeated use of "one" is not a problem at all. Tying yourself up in more and more convoluted linguistic circumlocutions so as to avoid what is at base a numinous rule: "Don't repeat yourself", is to be guarded against if you are aiming first and foremost for clarity and ease of understanding. And in the art of technical writing, clarity is foremost.

For further emphasis about the clarity of exposition, my own personal style in mathematical writing is not to use pronouns at all, because it is too easy to fall into the trap of being ambiguous, which in mathematics won't do at all.

If you do find yourself needing to repeat the same sentence pattern as in the above, you may want to think about formally structuring, for example:

"Guide to shirt colour:

• Red: to look offensive;

• White: to look fresh;

• Green: if you are in doubt;

• Black: if you are worried that it may become dirty too quickly."

Answer 3

Since this is technical writing, the concise nature of tables is appropriate and may make the information easier to scan quickly. You could try something like:

Vary your shirt color to achieve different goals according to the table below:

    Goal             |  Shirt color
    ==============================
    Appear offensive | Red
    Look fresh       | White
    Express doubt    | Green
    Hide dirt        | Black

The table format helps to enforce parallel structure. It reduces redundancy in the use of "one," but also avoids repetition of the introductory, "If you want to..." and of the verb "wear..."

Answer 4

Simply drop the indefinite article and the noun.

Instead of saying wear a red shirt, simply say wear red.

If you need to mention shirts at some point, you can provide an introductory sentence to this list.

When it comes to shirts, consider the following:

• If you want to look offensive, wear red.
• If you want to look fresh, wear white.
• When you are in doubt, wear green.
• If you are worried that a shirt might become dirty very quickly, wear black.

Answer 5

Personally, I would gradually simplify by dropping verbs and nouns when readers can easily infer them from the context:

If you want to look offensive, wear a red shirt. To look fresh, a white one. When in doubt, green. Worried that the shirt might become dirty very quickly, black.