3 ms·
The worst of the three versions you've given is the second, as it makes use of a sentence which, taken on its own, is a lie. It's poor writing to state a mistr
by MaxBarraclough 6y ago
The worst of the three versions you've given is the second, as it makes use of a sentence which, taken on its own, is a lie.
It's poor writing to state a mistruth and then whittle away at it until you arrive at the truth. Far better to build up truth upon truth until you arrive at the full picture.
Bad:
A natural number greater than 1 cannot be expressed as the product of two smaller natural numbers, if it is prime.
Good:
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. (Stolen from Wikipedia.)
- nicbou 6y agoIt still requires a fairly large buffer. It could be improved with some punctuation. A prime number is a natural number that is greater than 1, and not a product of two smaller numbers. Commas let you catch your breath and flush the buffer. When there are two many commas, I use a bullet list.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoMy point was there's an additional anti-pattern at play. As the reader progresses through a sentence, they shouldn't have to mentally cross out previously made categorical claims. This isn't quite the same thing as the stack overflow problem. I'm afraid I don't see your rephrasing as an improvement. It doesn't substantially restructure the sentence, and to someone familiar with the mathematical writing style, it reads less naturally.