This document discusses common pronoun errors including: 1) Pronouns not matching their antecedents. Special care must be taken with singular pronouns and collective nouns. 2) Vague or unnecessary pronouns where the noun being referred to is unclear or repetitious. 3) Inconsistent pronouns where the pronoun case switches within a sentence between first, second, and third person. Care must be taken to maintain consistent pronoun usage and case.

1. Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement
PRONOUN
 The antecedent is the word that the pronoun replaces.
ERRORS For purposes of variety, you would not reuse the same
noun several times within a sentence.
There are several ways to For instance, it would be awkward to say:
commit errors with The dog is in the dog’s house.
pronouns. In some cases,
You should replace the word dog’s with his. The nouns
the pronoun does not which his refers is the antecedent dog.
match its antecedent. In
other cases, the pronoun is  Some common pronoun/antecedent errors occur with
either unclear or special case singular pronouns and collective nouns.
This is actually prevalent in speech.
unnecessary. Also, it is not
unusual to accidentally Each of the mothers provided juice for their child.
switch from one pronoun This sentence is incorrect. Each is a singular
antecedent and requires a single pronoun.
case to another. Below are
some common errors Each of the mothers provided juice for her child.
found with pronouns. The sentence is now correct. Her is a singular pronoun.
It was easy to determine which third person singular
pronoun to use because of the word mothers.

2.  A gender must be assigned to androgynous singular pronoun.
Anyone visiting the museum had to show their identification.
This sentence is incorrect. Anyone is a special
singular antecedent. Therefore, you must use a
singular pronoun.
Anyone visiting the museum had to show his or her
identification.
The sentence is now correct. The antecedent agrees
with the third person singular pronoun.
The home team lost their lead against the visitors.
This sentence is incorrect because team is a collective
noun. It usually takes a singular pronoun. It should be:
The home team lost its lead against the visitors.

3. Vague or Repetitious Pronoun
 In some sentences, there is difficulty to determine which noun the
pronoun refers. In other word, the pronoun is vague or ambiguous. Other
sentences contain unnecessary pronouns because they are repetitious.
Tom told Arthur that his car needs repair.
Whose car needs repair in this sentence? The pronoun is ambiguous. It
should be like below:
Tom told Arthur that Arthur’s car needs repair.
Tom told Arthur that the latters’ car needs repair.
In the newspaper, it predicts that we will have rain tomorrow.
This pronoun is repetitious. We already have the noun newspaper.
The newspaper predicts that we will have rain tomorrow.

4. Inconsistent Pronouns
 Sometimes writers change pronouns within a sentence. This
occasionally happens when the writer is struggling with tone.
Fortunately, writing can be edited.
When one first enters the building, you see the office
directory.
The pronouns do not match in this sentence. One is third-person
singular, and you is second person.
When one first enters the building, one sees the office
directory.
Both pronouns in this sentence are third person. The sentence can
also be changed to second person. It all depends on your tone.
When you first enter the building, you see the office directory.