Phrase Frequency Counter
Paste a draft and the counter lists the two-word and three-word phrases that appear at least twice, most frequent first. Phrases made only of function words, such as of the and it is, are hidden by default so the repeats you actually notice rise to the top. Free, no sign-up, and nothing is uploaded.
How to Use the Phrase Frequency Counter
- Paste your text. An essay, a chapter, a speech or an article of a few hundred words or more. Short texts rarely repeat a phrase.
- Choose whether to hide stop phrases. The box is ticked at first. Untick it to include phrases such as in the.
- Press Count Phrases. The cards show the words analysed and how many two- and three-word phrases repeat, with a table for each length of up to 15 phrases.
- Revise and count again. The results do not update while you type, so press the button again after an edit. Copy Results puts both tables on your clipboard.
What Counts as a Phrase
The text is lowercased and split into words made of letters, numbers and internal apostrophes, so don't is one word and well-known becomes two. A phrase is any run of two or three words in a row. Punctuation does not break a run, so the last words of one sentence and the first of the next can form a phrase. A phrase is listed only if it occurs at least twice.
With Hide stop phrases ticked, the counter drops any phrase in which every word is a common function word — of the, it is, in the. A phrase with even one content word stays, so in the end survives while in the is removed. Ties are listed alphabetically.
A Worked Example
Paste this: Many students struggle with time management. Time management is a skill that can be learned. Good time management helps students finish work on time, and students who learn time management early do better. In the end, time management is about priorities; in the end, students choose what matters. The counter analyses 48 words and finds:
| Length | Phrase | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Two words | time management | 5 |
| Two words | management is | 2 |
| Two words | the end | 2 |
| Three words | in the end | 2 |
| Three words | time management is | 2 |
The phrase to act on is time management, five times in 48 words. Untick the filter and in the also appears with a count of 2, which is noise, not a style problem. The result shows why the filter is on by default.
What to Do With Repeated Phrases
- Key terms. A repeated technical term, such as time management here, is usually correct. Replacing it with a vague synonym can make a paper less clear.
- Filler and transitions. Repeated in order to, it is important to and as a result are the ones to trim or vary.
- Quoted or copied text. If a long phrase repeats exactly, check that you meant to quote it and that the source is cited.
- Set expressions. Phrases such as in the end or on the other hand may be natural, but several of them in a page become a tic.
Which Tool Do You Need?
| If you want… | Use |
|---|---|
| Repeated two- and three-word phrases, filler filtered | This page |
| The same phrases as percentages with warning colours | Keyword Density Analyzer |
| Single words ranked by count | Word Frequency Counter |
| Words repeated within a few words of each other | Word Repetition Checker |
| Every use of one phrase, in context | Concordance Tool (KWIC) |
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a phrase frequency counter?
- It counts how often each sequence of two or three words occurs in a text and lists the ones that repeat. Linguists call these sequences bigrams and trigrams, or n-grams. They show habits that single-word counts miss.
- What are stop phrases?
- Stop phrases are phrases made entirely of very common function words, such as of the, it is and in a. They nearly always head a raw n-gram list without telling you anything, so the tool hides them by default.
- Why does a phrase appear across a sentence boundary?
- Punctuation does not stop the counting, so the end of one sentence and the start of the next can pair up. This is occasionally odd, but a repeated pair is still a repeated pair, and the effect is small in long texts.
- Why are there no results?
- Either no two- or three-word phrase occurs twice, or the only ones that do are stop phrases. This is common in texts under about 200 words. Untick the filter to see the stop phrases, or paste more text.
- Why did my results not change when I edited the text?
- Counting happens when you press Count Phrases, not as you type. Press it again after editing. Changing the stop-phrase box does recount straight away.
- How is this different from keyword density?
- Keyword density gives each term as a percentage of all words and colours it by band. This page gives raw counts for repeated phrases only and filters filler, which suits revising prose rather than checking search copy.
- Is my text uploaded?
- No. Phrases are counted in your browser and the text is not sent anywhere. Copy Results uses your clipboard only.