The document discusses ambiguous references in writing and how to fix them. It defines ambiguous references as situations where a pronoun could refer to two different nouns, making the meaning unclear. Examples are provided where the pronouns "he", "she", and "her" could refer to multiple nouns. The document recommends ways to resolve ambiguous references, such as replacing pronouns with names, rewriting sentences for clarity, and applying logic to determine the intended meaning.

1. Professional Editor's Corner:
Ambiguous References
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2. • Ambiguous References
• What is an ambiguous reference, and how can we fix it?
• Before we can tackle this VERY common writing problem, we need a little
vocabulary.
• You probably already know this, but just in case, I’ll offer a definition. A pronoun
is a word that replaces or refers back to a noun (that we’ve already seen in the
sentence or paragraph).

3. • Take these sentences for example: Santana and Rachel have been fighting for their
entire high school careers. They are very alike, which is why they often come into
conflict.
• In the first sentence, “their” is a pronoun referring back to “Santana and Rachel.”
In the second sentence, “they” is a pronoun that replaces the compound noun
“Santana and Rachel.”
• Now for the most important vocabulary word. “Santana and Rachel” is the
antecedent for “their” and “they.” So the antecedent is the original noun that we
need pronouns to refer back to or replace.
• An ambiguous reference is the situation in which a sentence contains a pronoun
that could refer to either of two nouns in the same sentence or (using our new
vocabulary word) where we have a pronoun but we aren’t sure what its antecedent
is.

4. • Let’s look at some examples.
• 1. The partnership between Mr. Stevens and Mr. Peterson ended when he
embezzled money from the company and flew to Hong Kong.
• In this sentence, because both Stevens and Peterson are men, we don’t know to
which person the “he” refers. Who embezzled the money and travelled to Hong
Kong?
• To make this reference clear, we need to replace “he” with the name of the person.
• The partnership between Mr. Stevens and Mr. Peterson ended when Mr. Stevens
embezzled money from the company and flew to Hong Kong.

5. • 2. The mayor appointed Ms. Lopez chair of the committee because she was
convinced of the need for an environmental study.
• We don’t know whether the mayor is a man or a woman, so “she” could refer to
the mayor or Ms. Lopez. To fix this, we need to either replace “she” with a name
or rewrite the sentence so the reference is clear.
• Suppose the mayor is “she.”
• We could use a participial adjective and rewrite the sentence so that it’s right next
to “mayor”: Convinced of the need for an environmental study, the mayor
appointed Ms. Lopez chair of the committee.
• As with all participial adjectives at the beginning of a sentence, this one refers to
the subject (i.e., the mayor).

6. • Suppose Ms. Lopez is “she.”
• We need to connect being convinced with Ms. Lopez. Here’s one way.
• Because Ms. Lopez was convinced of the need for an environmental study, the
mayor appointed her chair of the committee.
• Here we switch where the pronoun goes. Instead of putting the pronoun in the
“convinced” part of the sentence, which could refer to either the mayor or Ms.
Lopez, we put it in the “appointed” part, which logic dictates can only apply to Ms.
Lopez. Then we KNOW that “her” must refer to Ms. Lopez because the mayor
would not appoint herself chair of the committee (but if she did, we would use the
reflexive pronoun “herself” instead of “her” because the mayor is also the subject of
the main sentence).

7. • We can rewrite sentences to make ambiguous references clear in MANY ways,
but here are a couple of tips.
• 1. We can ALWAYS simply repeat the noun (that the pronoun was supposed to
replace). In a pinch, do that.
• 2. Put the action as close to the noun the pronoun replaces as possible.
• 3. Apply logic. Even if a pronoun could grammatically speaking refer to one of two
nouns, if only one makes sense, that’s clear enough.

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