The phrase "a sort of pattern" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when describing something that resembles or has characteristics of a pattern, but is not a definitive or clear example of one.
Example: "The data revealed a sort of pattern in customer behavior that suggested a preference for online shopping."
Alternatives: "a kind of pattern" or "a type of pattern".
It's doing a sort of pattern matching.
"After spending some time on [Kranitz's] site," he wrote on his blog Walk Your Camera, "I began to notice a sort of pattern CNN must have used when selecting photos..
When he put all the newly discovered particles on this 3-D graph where you and I would put our sofa, and it probably wouldn't quite fit, they not only fitted but fell into a sort of pattern.
"I was doing a sort of pattern; I would make a grid on a paper and draw a little man in each square.
"I was doing a sort of pattern; I would do a grid on paper and draw a little man in each square.
These organizations often suffer from a lack of knowledge or desire to collaborate with one another -- they form a sort of fractal pattern of "I know better"s.
Given the position of the source, which can be estimated through GCF maximization, OGCF provides a sort of radiation pattern of the source (Figure 2) from which the most likely orientation can be derived.
The surface is entirely covered with impressed or incised lines, short, slanting, and parallel, arranged in either horizontal or vertical rows so as to produce a sort of comb pattern.
David Chipperfield, in what by his standards is a skittish mood, has wrapped his in 396 cast-iron columns, with a sort of basketweave pattern moulded on to them, which are not actually performing columns' traditional role of holding the building up.
We found that coastal areas generally suffer from an higher pressure due to the demand of longer or faster transport infrastructures and new settlements and less fragmented areas tend to show the most relevant dynamics in a sort of convergent pattern.
