[KineticLensman]

Yes, 'this' can be really problematic.

There are two problems with using ‘this’: Firstly, there may be ambiguity in what ‘this’ refers to. If a paragraph starts with ‘this means…’ or similar, it is impossible to understand the paragraph without looking back through the text – which of course makes it hard to dip into a text (e.g. especially in non-fiction, where readers may dip in to find some specific fact). Furthermore, any unit of text starting with ‘this’ cannot be copied and pasted somewhere else (e.g. from the main body of a report into the conclusions), where the meaning of ‘this’ is completely lost.

I think the problem sometimes happens because the author is writing in a flow state (they are ‘in the zone’) and is creating text that relates to their current mental model of something. This mental state is of course not accessible to a reader, or perhaps not even to the same author at a later date.

Solutions include getting an independent review by someone who isn’t also involved in the writing process, or if this is impossible, reviewing the text yourself after leaving it alone for a while. The ‘this at the start of a text unit’ problem is analogous to a linting check and doesn’t need to be done by a domain expert.