Revision 3: If students really think about how much they are paying for college, they are likely to be more focused in class. Revision 2 technically works, but it's awkward most style guides recommend avoiding this construction.Ī better option would be to change the antecedent (student) to its plural form: Revision 2: If a student really thinks about how much she or he is paying for college, she or he are likely to be more focused in class. Using He was the traditional recommendation in usage guides, but many critics have aptly pointed out the sexist bias inherent in using only he. Revision 1 is a common way to handle this issue, but try to balance the number of times you use he with she. Revision 1: If a student really thinks about how much he is paying for college, he are likely to be more focused in class. You can change they to " he" or "she" or " she or he": You have a options for correcting this error. Then, later, the writer may use they as a pronoun to replace student because the writer meant students in general.Įxample: If a student really thinks about how much they are paying for college, they are likely to be more focused in class. Errors like this aren’t usually an issue for most writers.Ī more common pronoun agreement error occurs when a writer uses a singular noun like student to represent students in general. For example, using the singular pronoun she to stand in for a group of girls would not agree in number. Pronoun agreement errors occur when the pronoun you are using to “stand in” for a noun does not agree with that noun in number, place, or gender.
Issues with pronoun agreement and pronoun references are common struggles for many beginning writers, but these problems are easy to correct once you realize the issue. A pronoun (I, me, he, she, herself, you, it, that, they, each, few, many, who, whoever, whose, someone, everybody, etc.) is a word that takes the place of a noun.
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