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Here's a sentence I'm trying to improve:

"This diagram represents the repartition of methods throughout the phases of the project"

Supposing there isn't a 1 to 1 distribution of methods and phases, but rather a continuous gradient (method A is more intensely used in the beginning, less in the end, method B more used in the end, less in beginning, etc), is there a better word than repartition or distribution to convey this continuous notion?

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  • Maybe "reallocation".
    – J. Taylor
    Feb 1, 2018 at 17:33
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    I certainly don't think repartition works in your context. You could consider reassignment, reallocation, redistribution, etc., but I can't see how anything like that would convey your "continuous" sense (which is far too subtle for me to understand, even with the benefit of your final "explanatory" paragraph).
    – FumbleFingers
    Feb 1, 2018 at 17:35
  • @FumbleFingers It could be described as a continuous redistribution or a smooth redistribution though.
    – BoldBen
    Feb 2, 2018 at 5:48

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If you would accept a suggestion on how to improve the sentence through restructuring rather than with a synonym, how about:

"This diagram shows the relative use of methods at each project phase, illustrating the shift in emphasis from Method A to Method B."

I like this construction because it starts by explaining how to read the figure before going on to suggest how to interpret that data.

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  • ah thanks! very helpful, the out-of-the-box answer is much appreciated and works better than a synonym in my text, in fact!
    – sc28
    Feb 2, 2018 at 18:06
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Repartition in this context may indicate that the original document was written by a French speaker, and used on the premise that words ending in "ion" are usually the same in both English and French. Just change it to distribution and move on. It's the diagram that matters most to the reader. Effort spent on tweaking the surrounding words usually has a pretty low return.

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  • Very insightful, thanks for the remark: i indeed falsely assumed the meaning in English was exactly the same, apparently not quite. Anyway my question was more out of curiosity than trying to optimize the "return" of my paragraph, so all comments were welcome.
    – sc28
    Feb 2, 2018 at 18:05

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