Accord­ing to Andrew Gel­man, we should avoid these words in research writing:

• Note that
• Inter­est­ingly
• Obvi­ously
• It is clear that
• It is inter­est­ing to note that
• very
• quite
• of course
• Notice that

I agree with him that all of these are overused, but that doesn’t mean they should be banned.  The words “very” and “quite” are use­ful for con­vey­ing the strength of a state­ment. Sim­i­larly, “of course” and “it is clear that” are occa­sion­ally use­ful, although they are fre­quently used to cover holes in an argu­ment or even to bol­ster a weak argument.

I have been work­ing hard on elim­i­nat­ing “Note that”, “Notice that”, “It is inter­est­ing to note that” and other vari­a­tions from my own writ­ing. The phrases don’t add any­thing and are eas­ily deleted. How­ever, using these phrases seems to be a deeply ingrained habit, and going cold turkey is tough!

Related Posts:

• Writ­ing responses to ref­eree reports
• How to avoid annoy­ing a referee
• Take note
• Writ­ing mathematics
• Using per­sonal pro­nouns in research writing