The phrase "sort of attempt" is grammatically correct and can be used in written English.
It is commonly used to describe a partial or incomplete attempt at something. Example: "I made a sort of attempt to clean my room, but I ended up just organizing my books and leaving the rest of the mess."
"There needs to be some sort of attempt at consensus," he said.
"Every day there is some sort of attempt to slip something by us and hope we don't notice.
Still less was it a capitulation to terrorism, or any sort of attempt to appease Muslim attackers.
The songs I write now come from an internal need rather than as any sort of attempt to have the hit.
Swindon, finding themselves increasingly on the back foot, also relied heavily on set-pieces for any sort of attempt on goal.
It's called A Granny's Guide to the Modern World (Channel 4), like a sort of attempt at a suspension bridge over the generation gap.
Will sort of attempts to push that whole Obama is the same as McCain meme we've been talking about, but his heart's not in it.
In the 25 years I have been in practice I have seen all sorts of attempts to deal with 'the women issue', but evidently none of them have worked.
Walter Lippmann, who through most of his career made a point of avoiding personal public appearances, for years spurned all sorts of attempts by television networks to get him to make an appearance on the screen.
There have been all sorts of attempts to get people to give up smoking over the years, and most have used the scare route, such as public service announcements featuring people who have lost their voice box or ever-increasingly ominous warnings on cigarette packs.
When viewed from the perspective of oncogenic selection, these sorts of attempts to rescue the importance of cancer stem-like cells take on the Kuhnian sense of a theory in crisis.
