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This was also the point that stood out to me as most wrong. If you have two sentences, the meaning changes completely depending on whether the second starts wit
by jessriedel 7y ago
This was also the point that stood out to me as most wrong. If you have two sentences, the meaning changes completely depending on whether the second starts with "However" vs. "Thus". It does not seem like good writing practice to me to elimate them and leave force the reader to infer.
More generally, words like "however", "thus", "although", "therefore", "indeed", and "notwithstanding" are crucial for helping the reader follow the thread of the argument.
- dmurray 7y agoThis stood out to me reading the notes from Knuth's Mathematical Writing seminar, linked elsewhere on this comment page. An example from page 21: > He recently spent four hours looking through the collected works of Lagrange trying to find the source of “Lagrange’s inequality,” but he was unsuccessful. Considering the benefit to future authors and readers, he’s not too unhappy with the new law. The second sentence contrasts with the first, and with the rest of the paragraph, which I have omitted here. I had to read it twice to grasp its meaning. A "however" or a "nonetheless" is a nice hint to the lazy reader.
- jessriedel 7y agoAgreed, though I don't think it's a matter of laziness. Language is ambiguous (garden path sentences, etc). Redundancy is necessary to ensure clarity, assuming your goal is to be clear, rather than to entertain.