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up vote 11 down vote favorite

I have 2 paragraphs in my paper, the previous paragraph ends with

"This shows that TF-IDF is still an important feature for text analysis task"

and my next paragraph starts with

"On the other hand, various studies suggested that LDA may not work on short documents due to insufficient context"

Is there another way of begin my next paragraph instead of saying "On the other hand" but keep the meaning of contrasting?

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3  
For what it's worth, I use "on the other hand" in professional contexts all the time. – jprete Dec 5 '11 at 19:12
If someone did vote down one this thread, may I know the reason? – cherhan Dec 5 '11 at 23:48
@jprete: I think it's fine with using "on the other hand" by all means, just that I have 2 consideration here. 1) I wish to have a less verbose tone. 2) Like Anthony mentioned below, I don't really have a first hand for my the other hand. – cherhan Dec 5 '11 at 23:50

7 Answers

up vote 41 down vote accepted

"Conversely, various studies suggested that LDA may not work on short documents due to insufficient context."

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up vote 1 down vote

I always went with the idea that if you use the phrase "on the other hand", somewhere previously there needs to be the "first" hand.

On the one hand, the cake was really expensive. On the other hand, it looked really good.

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1  
The phrase is well-known enough that this is not necessary. – jprete Dec 5 '11 at 19:13
1  
it would have helped if the OP explained how the sentences contrasted. – Theta30 Dec 5 '11 at 19:46
up vote 9 down vote

"However, various studies suggested that LDA may not work on short documents due to insufficient context"

Your text is ok, but since you are looking for a short version, here is my contribution :)

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up vote 13 down vote

You could write

"By contrast, various studies suggested that LDA may not work on short documents due to insufficient context."

Both conversely, "with a reversed relationship", and on the contrary are ok if you are writing about parallel cases; by contrast (or in contrast) suggests a difference but not necessarily a paralled or directly opposite relation.

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2  
I don't like on the contrary here; it implies disagreement rather than contrast. – TimLymington Dec 5 '11 at 15:17
up vote 2 down vote

Alternatively, you could use "alternatively." :-)

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1  
I am not sure, but what I would like to express is something contrast, contradict, opposite, instead of an alternate option. – cherhan Dec 5 '11 at 8:05
up vote 17 down vote

There's nothing wrong with On the other hand in any context.

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Hi Barrie, you are right, just that I find it a bit lengthy IMO. – cherhan Dec 5 '11 at 7:58
2  
@cherhan: The alternatives on offer aren't much shorter. In any case, length is sometimes what you need to show you're changing direction. – Barrie England Dec 5 '11 at 8:06
1  
Any context? – user362 Dec 5 '11 at 14:17
@cherhan: While the phrase isn't wrong, even in an academic context, I am certain many readers would feel that it doesn't look as academic as it could. Since there are other choices that work at least as well and don't suffer from this, you might as well choose one of those and avoid this one. (Conversely, which you accepted, is an excellent choice. It's both more academic-sounding and more concise.) – John Y Dec 5 '11 at 22:59
@JohnY: thanks, that's exactly what I meant, because I don't really want to sound verbose. – cherhan Dec 5 '11 at 23:47
up vote 5 down vote

'On the contrary, various studies have suggested that LDA may not work on short documents due to insufficient context.'

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