Using reference as a subject in writing Is it acceptable to use references as a subject in a sentence (in the context of academic writing, preferably in computer science)?

For example:


  An extensive research has been done on eye capture by [Bérard
  et al. 2014].


Versus:


  An extensive research has been done on eye capture by Bérard
  et al. [Bérard et al. 2014].


I feel like it removes tautology and makes the text easier on eyes. Moreover, I have seen published papers where authors write like this (although not many). However, it is considered to be bad style by a couple of people who I have asked. Their reasoning is that a reference should be an additional information and if you remove all references from the text, the text should still be complete and make sense. I understand this reason, but I feel like there are no real cases when this can be needed.
I don't know about computer science, but we would do


  An extensive research has been done on eye capture by Berard et al. (2014).