This article is going to describe … would be a terrible opening for this article. It’s six words that convey nothing. You already know this is an article, and you already know that it’s going to describe something. We don’t see this, fortunately, because the importance of a strong and compelling opening sentence is well recognised. At the paragraph level, however, it’s easy to forget the importance of the first sentence. In scientific cases, a symptom of poor or lazy writing is opening a paragraph with Figure n shows.
When it comes to visualising your data, the most important question to ask yourself is what’s your point. Wording a paragraph by starting with Figure n shows will not convey the point. It tells me what you did, but not why I should care. Using this phrase would be like putting the Methods section of a scientific paper before the Introduction.
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Brushing Up Science 