{"id":3039,"date":"2016-03-16T04:52:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T04:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/?p=3039"},"modified":"2021-11-16T19:36:49","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T13:36:49","slug":"use-of-pronouns-in-academic-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/use-of-pronouns-in-academic-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Effectively Use Pronouns in Academic Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pronouns are simple to define but can be confusing to use. For example, the statement, &#8220;<em>Each person should follow their dreams<\/em>,&#8221; represents a failure to correctly balance the <em>singular<\/em>\u00a0(each person) and the\u00a0<em>plural<\/em>\u00a0(their dreams). Correcting the statement can be done in two ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Each person should follow his or her dream (to balance the singular)<\/li>\n<li>All people should follow their dreams (to balance the plural)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/plagiarism-checker\/?utm_source=academy&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=banner&amp;utm_term=article\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36233 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/M3_inarticle-service-banner_900x270_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"270\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/M3_inarticle-service-banner_900x270_1.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/M3_inarticle-service-banner_900x270_1-470x141.jpg 470w, https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/M3_inarticle-service-banner_900x270_1-750x225.jpg 750w, https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/M3_inarticle-service-banner_900x270_1-768x230.jpg 768w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 900px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 900\/270;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pronouns are often referred to as the understudies of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/improve-grammar-resources\/\">English grammar<\/a>\u00a0because they are called upon to stand in for nouns (that are then referred to as\u00a0<em>antecedents<\/em>\u00a0because they are being replaced by pronouns). \u00a0Pronouns can be singular (I, me, he, she, you, it) or plural (they, them, we, etc.). However, their roles are limited to stand-in for either the\u00a0<em>subject<\/em>\u00a0or the\u00a0<em>object<\/em>\u00a0of a sentence:<\/p>\n<p><em>The girl spent the weekend sewing<\/em><em> the girl\u2019s dress so that the girl would have enough time to make alterations to the dress on Monday.<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Related:\u00a0Having difficulty with language and grammar in your manuscript? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/category\/academic-writing\/language-grammar\/?utm_source=related&amp;utm_medium=use-of-pronouns&amp;utm_campaign=language-grammar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Check out these helpful resources now!<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The above sentence demonstrates how clumsy and repetitious writing can be without the use of pronouns. When properly used, the sentence can be cleaned up as follows:<\/p>\n<p><em>The girl spent the weekend sewing\u00a0<u>her<\/u>\u00a0dress so that\u00a0<u>she<\/u>\u00a0would have enough time to make alterations to<u>\u00a0it<\/u>\u00a0on Monday.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The antecedents (nouns being replaced) are clearly matched to each pronoun: her (the girl), she (the girl), it (the dress).<\/p>\n<h2>Important Cases<\/h2>\n<p>Maintaining a clear match between pronouns and their antecedents becomes easier if you remember that pronouns come in three cases:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Subjective<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>case\u00a0\u2013 the doer (subject) of the action:\u00a0<u>I<\/u>\u00a0throw the ball.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Objective\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>case \u2013 the receiver (object) of the action: Throw the ball to\u00a0<u>me.<\/u><\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Possessive<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0case \u2013 shows ownership:\u00a0<u>My<\/u>\u00a0throw struck the player out!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"om-dqx4acd1ednpm2dtmovz-holder\"><\/div>\n<h2>Rules of Pronoun Use<\/h2>\n<p>To avoid noun repetition and use pronouns effectively, you should remember the different types of pronouns and the way they can be used in a sentence:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Personal pronouns<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>represent people or things: I came to see him today.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Demonstrative pronouns<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>point out someone or something: This is his bat; that is your ball.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Relative pronouns<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>relate one part of a sentence to another: One country that I\u2019d like to visit someday is New Zealand (<em>that<\/em>\u00a0relates to\u00a0<em>country<\/em>).<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Reflexive pronouns<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>(also called\u00a0<em>intensive\u00a0<\/em>pronouns) reflect back to someone or something else in the sentence: You must ask yourself what you did to get into this situation (<em>Yourself<\/em>\u00a0relates back to\u00a0<em>you<\/em>).<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Interrogative pronouns<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>ask a question (interrogate): What in the world were you thinking?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Indefinite pronouns<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">do not<\/span> refer to a specific place or thing that has already been mentioned in a sentence. This can be confusing because that thing may be very definite and can be singular or plural. Example: someone\/somebody and everyone\/everybody.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>A Simple Check<\/h2>\n<p>Learning the correct rules of pronoun use can appear to be overwhelming\u2014so many types in so many cases! However, checking the correct use of a pronoun is relatively simple. First, read the sentence back to yourself and trust your ear. An incorrect balance between pronoun and antecedent simply won\u2019t sound right:<\/p>\n<p><em>Fidel Castro\u2019s communist principles inevitably led to ideological differences between he and President Kennedy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The need to correct &#8220;<em>he\u2019&#8221;\u00a0<\/em>to &#8220;<em>him\u2019<\/em>\u00a0 is an easy catch because the sentence doesn\u2019t sound right as written. When multiple antecedents are involved, you can check your pronoun use by replacing each antecedent with its original noun to check that you are using the correct pronoun.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display:flex; gap:10px;justify-content:\" class=\"wps-pgfw-pdf-generate-icon__wrapper-frontend\">\n\t\t<a  href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039?action=genpdf&amp;id=3039\" class=\"pgfw-single-pdf-download-button\" ><img data-src=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-generator-for-wp\/admin\/src\/images\/PDF_Tray.svg\" title=\"Generate PDF\" style=\"width:auto; height:45px;\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\"><\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pronouns are simple to define but can be confusing to use. For example, the statement,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[1430],"ppma_author":[1894],"class_list":["post-3039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language-grammar","category-academic-writing","tag-using-pronouns-effectively"],"better_featured_image":{"id":23866,"alt_text":"Use Pronouns","caption":"","description":"Pronouns are simple to define but can be confusing to use. Here are some tips on how to use pronouns effectively in academic writing.","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":750,"height":430,"file":"2016\/03\/Pronoun.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Pronoun-170x150.jpg","width":170,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-170x150.jpg"},"medium":{"file":"Pronoun-401x230.jpg","width":401,"height":230,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-401x230.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Pronoun-750x430.jpg","width":750,"height":430,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-750x430.jpg"},"better-amp-small":{"file":"Pronoun-100x100.jpg","width":100,"height":100,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-100x100.jpg"},"better-amp-normal":{"file":"Pronoun-260x200.jpg","width":260,"height":200,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-260x200.jpg"},"better-amp-large":{"file":"Pronoun-450x300.jpg","width":450,"height":300,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-450x300.jpg"},"publisher-tb1":{"file":"Pronoun-86x64.jpg","width":86,"height":64,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-86x64.jpg"},"publisher-sm":{"file":"Pronoun-210x136.jpg","width":210,"height":136,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-210x136.jpg"},"publisher-mg2":{"file":"Pronoun-279x220.jpg","width":279,"height":220,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-279x220.jpg"},"publisher-md":{"file":"Pronoun-357x210.jpg","width":357,"height":210,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-357x210.jpg"},"publisher-tall-sm":{"file":"Pronoun-180x217.jpg","width":180,"height":217,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-180x217.jpg"},"publisher-tall-lg":{"file":"Pronoun-267x322.jpg","width":267,"height":322,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-267x322.jpg"},"publisher-tall-big":{"file":"Pronoun-368x430.jpg","width":368,"height":430,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-368x430.jpg"},"Book Review":{"file":"Pronoun-320x430.jpg","width":320,"height":430,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun-320x430.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":3039,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pronoun.jpg"},"acf":{"faq_main_heading":"","faq_heading_one":"","faq_heading_two":"","faq_heading_three":"","faq_heading_four":"","faq_heading_five":"","faq_heading_six":"","faq_description_one":"","faq_description_two":"","faq_description_three":"","faq_description_four":"","faq_description_five":"","faq_description_six":""},"views":5966,"single_webinar_page_date":null,"single_webinar_page_time":null,"session_agenda":null,"who_should_attend_this_session":null,"about_the_speaker_field":null,"co-webinar-sec":null,"co_webinar_sec_one":null,"speaker-name":null,"webinar-date":null,"webinar-time":null,"webinar-s-image":null,"custum_webinar_category":null,"authors":[{"term_id":1894,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daveishan","display_name":"Enago Academy","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cropped-favicon-192x192-1.png","url2x":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cropped-favicon-192x192-1.png"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":"Enago Academy, the knowledge arm of Enago, offers comprehensive and up-to-date resources on academic research and scholarly publishing to all levels of scholarly professionals: students, researchers, editors, publishers, and academic societies. It is also a popular platform for networking, allowing researchers to learn, share, and discuss their experiences within their network and community. The team, which comprises subject matter experts, academicians, trainers, and technical project managers, are passionate about helping researchers at all levels establish a successful career, both within and outside academia."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3039"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}