It is often necessary to present calculations, or at least their outlines, in a proof. However, when I need to do it, if the calculation takes more than one line (or perhaps two at the most), I feel a bit uneasy, and have wrestled with trying to present it in a better way. On friday, I was browsing a journal, and came across a paper, in a subject that I was interested in, which contained a number of calculations which were at least a half a page of nothing but formulas. This made me shudder. Ultimately the reason why we should write papers is to foster insight, and I think that such presentations fail that test.
So, how do people deal with this problem?
