Pronouns are useful for avoiding repetition and adding interest to our writing. For example, consider the following:
Sarah likes fashion. Sarah wants to have a career in fashion design, and so Sarah will study fashion design in college. Sarah hopes to work for a famous designer someday.
The repeated use of “Sarah” becomes monotonous and uninteresting. The use of a pronoun removes these problems:
Sarah likes fashion. She wants to have a career in fashion design, and so she will study fashion design in college. Sarah hopes to work for a famous designer someday.
While pronouns can be useful, they can also be a source of great confusion when they aren’t used properly. The most common error in using pronouns is the absence of a clearly identified antecedent. The antecedent is the noun that the pronoun represents. In the above example, “Sarah” is the antecedent for “she.”
When the antecedent isn’t clear, confusion is the result. For example:
Sarah and Mary like fashion. She wants to have a career in fashion design.
In this example, the antecedent isn’t clearly identified. Does “she” refer to Sarah or Mary? The writer knows, but the reader can’t tell.
When we use pronouns, we have to be clear regarding what or who it represents. This can be more difficult when we use two or more nouns in a sentence or paragraph. In such cases, we may need to use the noun more often to make our meaning clear. It is much better to overuse a noun than make the antecedent of a pronoun unclear. Clarity is king, and when the antecedent isn’t clear, clarity isn’t achieved.