conjunctions - Overuse of "however" in my scientific writing?



In scientific writing, I always feel the need to logically connect all my sentences to have a clear logical path between beginning and end of a paragraph, else it is just feels like a list of random phrases to me and not a complete argument. However, more often than not, the only fitting connector is "however", as "but" is informal. Is it acceptable to use "however" very often or is that bad style and in the latter case, how can I improve it?


An example


Blue data is better than red data. Standard algorithms, however, are all written with red data in mind and don't work on blue data. Violet algorithms handle blue data as well as red data, however they are very slow. Blue-only algorithms can process blue data really fast, however most blue data is mixed with a small percentage of red data.



Answer



Yes, however is fine and extremely common in scientific writing. There's nothing wrong with but either, by the way. You can also use other alternatives. For example:



Blue data is better than red data. Standard algorithms, however, are all written with red data in mind and don't work on blue data. Violet algorithms handle blue data as well as red data, but they are very slow. On the one hand, blue-only algorithms can process blue data really fast; on the other hand, most blue data is mixed with a small percentage of red data.



What is certainly true, however, is that not only is the word however used in scientific writing, it is far more common there than anywhere else. See this COCA result:


COCA diagram showing that however is more common in academic writing


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