I have read some papers who referenced like this
" [23] showed an innovative approach" instead of one of the most common way "author X in 2017 showed an innovative approach [23]" .
My question is that way of referencing
a) completely wrong ?
b) aggressive but ok ?
c) other
and should I do it also ? Cause it saves space and reduces unnecessary writings like "author X in 2017". And this comes in handy esp for journal/conferences with page limits