The Hidden Cost of 'It Turns Out': How a Simple Phrase Undermines Good Writing

The phrase 'it turns out' crept into my vocabulary around mid-2006, which, it turns out, coincided with my discovery of Paul Graham's essays. At first glance, this seems like a harmless coincidence. After all, Graham doesn't overuse the phrase—a quick search reveals only 46 unique instances across his entire body of work. But that's precisely the problem: he uses it so effectively that it's become a model for other writers to emulate, often to their detriment.

Let's start with the innocent uses of 'it turns out.' Imagine walking into a new deli expecting roast beef, only to discover they don't carry it. You might tell your friends, 'You know that new deli on Fifth St.? It turns out they don't even have roast beef!' Or picture describing a movie with a shocking twist: '...and so they let him go, thinking nothing of it. But it turns out that he, this very guy that they just let go, was the killer all along.' In these contexts, the phrase works perfectly—it conveys genuine surprise about concrete, verifiable facts.

The trouble begins when writers import this casual, discovery-oriented tone into more serious arguments. Take this passage from Graham himself, arguing that Cambridge, Massachusetts is the intellectual capital of the world:

When I moved to New York, I was very excited at first. It's an exciting place. So it took me quite a while to realize I just wasn't like the people there. I kept searching for the Cambridge of New York. It turned out it was way, way uptown: an hour uptown by air.

Wait—that's not an argument at all. It's a blind assertion based solely on personal experience, masquerading as a neutral observation. The phrase 'it turned out' cleverly disguises what is essentially 'I believe this because I feel this way.'

This is what I mean when I say Graham 'gets mileage' out of the phrase. He exploits our psychological association between 'it turns out' and genuine discovery. When a scientist says '...but the E. coli turned out to be totally resistant,' we understand this comes from careful experimentation and unexpected results. When Malcolm Gladwell writes '...and it turns out all these experts have something in common: 10,000 hours of deliberate practice,' we assume he's uncovered a pattern through rigorous research.

Writers have learned to borrow this credibility. The phrase creates a false sense of objectivity—it suggests the author is merely reporting what 'turned out' to be true, rather than making a subjective claim. It's the difference between saying 'I believe X' and 'X turns out to be true.' The latter implies a journey of discovery, even when no such journey occurred.

This rhetorical sleight of hand works because it taps into our trust in the scientific method and empirical observation. We're conditioned to be more receptive to conclusions that seem to emerge naturally from evidence rather than being asserted directly. 'It turns out' provides the comforting illusion that the writer has done the hard work of investigation, and we're simply receiving the results.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: 'it turns out' is often a shortcut, a hack that lets writers skip the actual work of building an argument. Instead of showing us the path from premise to conclusion, they simply declare that things 'turned out' a certain way. It's particularly insidious because it feels natural—we use the phrase in everyday conversation without thinking twice.

The next time you catch yourself writing 'it turns out,' ask yourself: Am I genuinely surprised by new information? Have I actually discovered something through investigation? Or am I using this phrase to smuggle in an assertion without proper justification? The answer might reveal more about your writing habits than you'd like to admit.

Good writing requires taking responsibility for our claims. Instead of hiding behind the passive voice of discovery, we should own our arguments: 'I believe this because...' or 'The evidence suggests that...' These constructions may feel more vulnerable, but they're also more honest and ultimately more persuasive. After all, readers can smell a rhetorical trick from a mile away—even if they can't quite put their finger on what's bothering them.

So perhaps it's time to retire 'it turns out' from our serious writing. Not because it's always wrong, but because its power to obscure weak reasoning is too great. In an age of misinformation and rhetorical manipulation, we need writing that's transparent about its methods and honest about its limitations. Sometimes the most powerful thing a writer can say is simply: 'This is what I think, and here's why.'