I think Douglas Adams talked about how he used that phrase in Salmon of Doubt:

“Incidentally, am I alone in finding the expression ‘it turns out’ to be incredibly useful? It allows you to make swift, succinct, and authoritative connections between otherwise randomly unconnected statements without the trouble of explaining what your source or authority actually is. It’s great. It’s hugely better than its predecessors ‘I read somewhere that...’ or the craven ‘they say that...’ because it suggests not only that whatever flimsy bit of urban mythology you are passing on is actually based on brand new, ground breaking research, but that it’s research in which you yourself were intimately involved. But again, with no actual authority anywhere in sight.”

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1162965

(How did this even get posted?)

It's a really good post though.

I often use it in a slightly different role: to introduce a new idea or discovery I've made without sounding like I'm fishing for compliments:

"I've thought a lot about a better way to implement this circuit, and it turns out that there is one."

I'm sure I subconsciously use it for the "appeal to invisible authority" thing, too.

The following comment on the blog cracked me up, mainly because of how true it is.

Bob says:

August 25, 2010 at 6:21 am

one word: “RADIOLAB”

''in other words, because “it turns out” is the sort of phrase you would use to convey, for example, something unexpected about a phenomenon you’ve studied extensively—as in the scientist saying “…but the E. coli turned out to be totally resistant”—or some buried fact that you have recently discovered on behalf of your readers—as when the Malcolm Gladwells of the world say “…and it turns out all these experts have something in common: 10,000 hours of deliberate practice”—readers are trained, slowly but surely, to be disarmed by it.''

i —like— writers who use —dashes— extensively

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson#Structure_and_s...

I really used to like that phrase; it makes real life into more of a narrative. Now it's becoming overused (that's not pg's fault). I'm avoiding it. Quel dommage.