The word that has its uses, but when used unnecessarily, it has the same effect as eating a spoonful of peanut butter – it can gum things up in a hurry.
Used properly, that can act as an adjective, "That man is annoying me." It also can serve ably as a pronoun (a word that fills in for a noun), "That just steams me," or "This is a subject that I enjoy talking about."
Too often, though, that just wanders into a sentence and stands there, doing nothing and getting in the way. Such is the case with:
-- She said that she wanted to go home
-- The witness admitted that he lied.
-- Mary said that she's willing to do the report.
In each of these instances, you could strip that out of the sentence and not only would it be grammatically correct, it would read more smoothly.
The next time you're uncertain whether that is being used properly, try your copy without it. If it still reads correctly, have that stand aside for when it's really needed.
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