Unnecessary editing
Feedback on a paper: “Never start a sentence with ‘however.’”
Ugh. Come on. That’s ridiculous. Look, I love Strunk and White as much as the next grammar geek, but as long as I put the comma in the correct place when starting a sentence with “however,” you need to step off.
Yep. That’s horrible feedback. The beginning of a sentence is a perfectly good place for “However.”
Here’s how you don’t want to use “however”: “The movie was great, however, it was really long.” That there is a comma splice, which is almost always a no-no. But* put a semicolon after “great,” and you’re fine, because the part after the semicolon would work as a sentence all on its own.
* Yes, it’s also OK to start a sentence with “But.”
