: Alternatives to "The question sought to determine whether or not ..." The phrase "The question sought to determine whether or not ..." is (to me) like fingernails on a chalkboard. I "get"

This is a poorly written phrase and sounds awkward out loud.

The sentence is wrought with implicit and implied redundancies, giving it poor structure. That the 'final' word rhymes with the second word could account for the "chalkboard effect."

"The question sought..."
This opening subject tells me the writer wasn't confident in the clarity of the initial question and felt the need to rehash or re-explain a question from earlier. From the example the original question seems to be simple and clear. If this is true the answer is to re-write the initial question so there is no need to explain it a second time.

Or ... delete the entire sentence. Back up and rewrite stronger prose in preceding text.

Let's assume we are discussing a complicated question in a complicated subject. Possibly it was first asked in another language and doesn't translate well. In this case, we can replace all that redundant phrasing with,

"He's asking if..." or "He asked if..."
or "He asks if..."
Note -- "sought" is past-tense and "to determine" is an infinitive. I find this passive and unclear as to which verb-tense the writer is expressing. Same for the verb-stem, also unclear. In the above examples I assumed third-person male and rewrote it in the present-perfect, past and present-tense.

Lastly let's assume the task is to edit the question by itself into something more clear and concise (Based on nothing but the phrase itself).

Questions can be said to ALWAYS seek (an answer). To determine (an answer) is an implied consequence in context.. That's a double-redundancy. We know what kind of answer it is too: "whether or not," --> yes or no? true or false? It's Boolean!

Eliminating redundancies I'd rewrite it as such:

"Is X true?" Or ... "Did X happen?"

Alternately, if we've defined X clearly and with matching verb-tenses as the answer to a yes or no question, we might rewrite it as a conditional logic statement.

"If X, then ..."

Or, simply.

"X?"

---

(0)