I have reached the point of using search to find my uses of "that", and then try to fix them. ...I knew she would... ...I knew that she would... After reading them over and over, they both sound fine, but certainly one way is better. Help
Doesn't it depend on the tone and pace of the rest of the paragraph? Maybe posting a longer excerpt - say, the full sentence or maybe a couple of sentences surrounding the one in question might help?
Grammatically/semantically, both of those should be correct. I would just use whichever sounds better in the situation or context. If, for example, a character is saying that, I'd take his/her manner of speaking into consideration. Like Mckk said, it would otherwise simply concern tone/pace.
It is a stylistic choice, but there seems to be a US/UK difference in preference. In the UK it seems we usually prefer to include "that", in the USA it seems that they usually prefer to omit it. So maybe "certainly one way is better", but which one it is depends on where you are.
I agree with both Mckk and Throm above. Re. the above excerpt the word 'that' is unnecessary; therefore I'd delete it - but as the others have said; style could dictate otherwise.
Further to this, Fowler's Modern English Usage describes omitting "that" as "An exercise of the ancient right to abstain from subordinating a substantival clause", and that while some verbs can include or drop "that" at will, other verbs show a strong preference one way or the other. For example, "assert" is particularly likely to take "that". I suspect those strong preferences vary from place to place.
ditto all of the above... as an editor and writing tutor, i generally caution writers to leave it out, since most newish ones tend to overuse it and use it where obviously not needed...
I must love "That" word because I over use it. I've used the "Search" function to find and destroy THAT more than once. Once more I have profited from this site. Thanks again. captken
