Professional editor's corner ambiguous references

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Professional Editor's Corner Ambiguous References
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• 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,
  Ill offer a definition. A pronoun is a word that
  replaces or refers back to a noun (that weve
  already seen in the sentence or paragraph).

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• 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 arent sure what its antecedent is.

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• Lets 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 dont 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.

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• 2. The mayor appointed Ms. Lopez chair of the
  committee because she was convinced of the need
  for an environmental study.
• We dont 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 its 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).

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• Suppose Ms. Lopez is she.
• We need to connect being convinced with Ms.
  Lopez. Heres 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).

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• 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, thats clear enough.

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