vague reference

Vague reference is a common problem in sentences where “this,” “it,”“which” or other such words don’t refer back to any one specific word orphrase, but a whole situation. “I hitchhiked back to town, got picked upby an alien spacecraft and was subjected to humiliating medicalexperiments, which is why I didn’t get my paper done on time.” Inconversation this sort of thing goes unnoticed, but more care needs tobe taken in writing. There are lots of ways to reorganize this sentenceto avoid the vague reference. You could replace “which is why” with “so,” for instance.Sometimes the referent is only understood and not directly expressed atall: “Changing your oil regularly is important, which is one reason yourengine burned up.” The “which”refers to an implied failure to changeoil regularly, but doesn’t actually refer back to any of the specificwords used earlier in the sentence.Sometimes there is no logical referent: “In the book it says thatShakespeare was in love with some “dark lady” .” This is a casual way ofusin

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• submittal vs submission
• ninty vs ninety
• in tact vs intact
• tooken vs took vs taken
• absorbtion vs absorption
• wreckless vs reckless
• as less as possible vs as little as possible
• acapella vs a capella vs a cappella
• standalone vs stand-alone
• bias vs biased