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Book-Specific Resources / 20 Most Common Errors / Error #16 
Some pronoun problems occur with such words as each, either, neither, and one, which are singular and take singular pronouns. 
Problems can also occur with antecedents that are joined by or or nor. 
Some problems involve words like audience and team, which can be either singular or plural depending on whether they are considered a single unit or multiple individuals. 
Because team refers to the multiple members of the team rather than to the team as a single unit, its needs to be changed to their. The other kind of antecedent that causes problems is an antecedent such as each or employee, which can refer to either man or women. Use he or she, him or her, and so on, or rewrite the sentence to make the antecedent and pronoun plural or to eliminate the pronoun altogether. 
Check your draft for all uses of pronouns, words such as I, it, you, her, this, themselves, someone, and who that replace another word (the antecedent) so that it does not have to be repeated. Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender (for example, using he or him to replace Abraham Lincoln and she or her to replace Queen Elizabeth) and in number (for example, using it to replace a book, and they or them to replace fifteen books). For practice recognizing and editing this error, go to Exercise Central. |
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