26 Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

I don’t think you’re going to like this chapter very much. I think you’ll find it a bit too nit-picky, and you won’t see why clear pronoun agreement such a big deal. And you know what? I often feel that way too. In fact, I don’t think you should even read this chapter until you understand all the other stuff in the book really well.

But once you’re ready, I hope you’ll give this chapter a shot because it will give you one last tool in your editor’s toolkit, one last way to make your writing clearer and more economical. Let’s get started.

Pronouns Point Back

Remember that pronouns are words that stand in place of nouns. In the following sentence, for example, the word she stands in place of the name Margery.

Margery did not come to school this week because she was traveling in France.

In this sentence, readers understand who she refers to because they’ve seen the name (a proper noun) earlier in the sentence. We call the noun being replaced by the pronoun its antecedent. And what you need to know is this: all pronouns need to have a single, clear antecedent.