I was editing a friend's manuscript and I noticed that they do something similar to what I have been told not to do when referring to previous work done in the field of interest being discussed. I would often refer to the citation i.e. the study and then go on to say what they found in the study For example, I would sometimes say:
Smith et al. (2020) modeled how the life history of species x was affected by environmental pressure, they concluded that increased pressure would also lead to earlier maturation.
I have been told by different advisors that this is considered "bad writing", in that it is generally preferred to refer to the work at the end of a sentence as opposed to the beginning. However, no-one has explained why this is the case. I passed this information onto my friend as well, but I am curious as to why?
An example of how my advisors edited the above sentence:
Modelling of the life history of species x showed that increased environmental pressure would also lead to earlier maturation (Smith et al. 2020)
I understand that technically the edited version sounds better, my question is why specifically it is considered bad form to mention your citation/reference at the beginning of the sentence?