Week 4 Post 1 - Tautologous

Where and when: This word starts with a confession.  As part of the other class I am taking this semester, I read an article this weekend about SIOP.  I was struggling to understand the article as I was reading so I decided to pop over to Wikipedia.org to enhance my background knowledge before trying the article again.   To my utter amazement I encountered this sentence: As in any instructional approach, the use of sheltered instruction is effective when the teacher is capable of administering the lessons effectively, although the causal direction of this tautologous observation is not clear.

Level of familiarity: No idea. None.  I rarely encounter a word that I don't know completely - but this is one of them.  

What it means: Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines tautology as a statement with an idea that is repeated unnecessarily.  Basically, a redundant statement. In the context of the Wikipedia article, it is that instruction is only effective with effective teachers.

Reflective comments: In this context, tautologous seems like a totally pointless word.  It is very obvious that the statement is redundant and the concept is circular.  In fact, it seems to me that the use of the word is rather tautologous.  The concept is obviously redundant and so pointing it out becomes redundant.  

Because the statement was such a good example of tautology, I suppose I could have figured out what it meant from the context.  However, I was so surprised at this word that I had to look it up in order to understand the statement.