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In a formal scientific writing, is it better to keep that in a clause where you can omit it?

E.g.

In an objective clause: This implies (that) the sun is the center of the universe.

In a relative clause: The group (that) we took special actions are not influenced.

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    Look at it this way: every optional marker you delete removes a flag that the reader can use to parse your sentence. Markers like that are not data, since they only have structural information; but deleting structural information is an avoidable source of ambiguity, when clarity matters. On the other hand, leaving all the markers in clutters the path the reader must take. A good rule is to vary constructions and not always be using the same kind of clauses, which produces fewer that's.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 15:28
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    This is possibly a duplicate of english.stackexchange.com/questions/455779/…, but it's not clear as you may be asking for advice about that in a specifically scientific context. I'm not sure if that makes a difference, but perhaps it might.
    – Jason Bassford
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 18:09
  • To the extent that you're asking about an accepted style in scientific writing, rather than about the actual grammatical usage, your question might be more appropriate to our sibling site Writing. If you don't get a satisfactory answer here at EL&U, flag your question and ask for it to be migrated. :-)
    – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten
    Commented Sep 6, 2018 at 12:43

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