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Comment by anonymousDan | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with the advice on not using transition words such as 'however'. These can be a useful signpost that e.g. the approach described in the previous sentence has a drawback and/or to build tension when describing a problem. Or maybe I'm just not a good enough writer to do it in some other way...

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Words like however and similar are often useful in the introduction of a paper to expose the context, current state of the art, and problem that your research is attacking. I'm in engineering though, so most research and papers follow the theme of "there exists this problem, current solutions are this and this, however they are not ideal because X, therefore we present this novel solution which is really great".

Yes exactly the kind of structure I'm talking about.

therefore we present this novel solution which is really great...however we didn't take any of these things into consideration, so it might not be.

People can always tell when someone is about to say "however".

Might as well fulfill the expectation.

I agree with your sentiment, however the author suggested minimizing. Not eliminating.

If you can split it into two separate, simpler sentences, it's usually easier for me to read. I appreciate clarity in academic writing much more than I appreciate any dramatic flourishes the author may attempt to make.

I'm not saying you can't split the sentence into two, just that e.g. the second sentence might start 'However,...' to emphasize the contrast with the preceding sentence.

I read science papers to learn. Concise prose presented in a logical order is the best for this. Transition words often add unnecessary subjectivity and filler.

The subjectivity is be important to make the uncertainties clear. Papers and research results aren't always clear and objective. We did a thing, however it might not have been the best approach. We got some results which might be relevant, however there are these confounding factors that might mean they aren't. At the end of the project we realised that we probably should have started with doing X, however we didn't and I don't know if it would have made a difference or not.

If you want information presented in a clear, unambiguous and logical order, it's best to wait for the textbook.

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