Is it proper to say "As mentioned earlier" when being repetitive?

Writing an APA paper. If saying something almost verbatim from the previous section of the paper, but elaborating, would you say, "As mentioned earlier" and then the sentence, or just leave that part off and write the sentence even if it is almost word for word.

I think you should write, "as mentioned earlier", but you should change what had already been written a bit, so it doesn't sound repetitive. Even if it was more than a paragraph ago, it would still be good to change it a little at least.

:)

As mentioned earlier, Mr. Lee is the founder of the Book Club.

As mentioned before,

As mentioned previously,

It was mentioned before,