Who is they? What is it?

I vividly remember the first time my advisor returned to me a draft of a manuscript I had written as a senior in college. I considered myself a pretty good writer, but page after page contained corrections and suggestions that filled the margins. The comments were all written in red ink, which I'm sure made the situation seem worse than it was.

It turns out, though, that I wasn't a bad writer. I was in the same position that the vast majority of my students are in now - my writing was littered with little bad habits that collectively made my writing a lot less understandable than it could be. As a professor who now has to read student manuscripts, essays, and test answers, I'm impressed with how commonly-shared these bad habits are. This blog will provide writing tips (and presentation tips) each month in conjunction with the Psychology Department Newsletter.

Today's Topic: Who is they? What is it?

One of the most commonly repeated bad habits is the overuse of pronouns (especially "it" and "they").

1. Pronouns are ambiguous

One problem with overusing pronouns is that pronouns are often ambiguous. Consider the following example:

Fifteen rats were tested by the researchers over a two week period. They were housed in standard shoebox cages and had free access to food and water.

Who was housed in shoebox cages? The rats? Or the researchers? Surely, this is a trivial example - it must be the rats. But in many cases, the solution is less obvious.

Addiction to certain pain killers, such as Oxycontin, can cause hearing problems. This problem appears to be more common now than ever before.

Which problem? Addiction or drug-induced hearing loss? Of course the answer may become obvious a few sentences down the road, but if your readers have guessed wrong, you've forced them to rethink or reread when they shouldn't have to. You want your reader to comprehend your ideas immediately and without effort.

The funny thing is, it takes hardly any effort to be clear:

Addiction to certain pain killers, such as Oxycontin, can cause hearing problems. Addiction to such drugs appears to be more common now than ever before.

No more effort for you; far less effort for your readers.

2. Pronouns get repetitive

Pronouns should only be used to avoid repetition, and only when the antecedent is unambiguous. Pronouns are best used when the antecedent is in the same sentence or in the end clause of the preceding sentence.

In my experience, though, students tend to use pronouns in a repetitive fashion when specifying the subject would not be repetitive. I have counted as many as 7-8 repetitions of "they" in a single paragraph. If anything, repeating "they" is more wearisome for a reader than repeating "the participants".

3. Pronouns make your readers work
Every time we encounter a pronoun, our brains have to translate that pronoun into its antecedent. A pronoun is a code. In the sentence:

They were given a personality test.

the word "they" is code for "the participants". This code is constantly changing. Later in the same paper, there may be this sentence:

They standardized the scores before analyzing them.

in which "they" is code for "the researchers". But why write in code at all? Your job when you write is to be clear - if you have a choice to write "The researchers standardized the scores" instead of "They standardized the scores" - why wouldn't you?

(By the way, is it ever okay to use pronouns? Sure - in the previous example. The word "them" is code for "scores" - "The researchers standardized the scores before analyzing them" - but the antecedent is unambiguous, is only a few words away, and spares us the redundancy of saying "the scores" twice. Of course, better would be "The researchers standardized the scores before analysis" or, still better, "The researchers standardized the scores." So I got rid of the pronoun after all!)

The Tip
Don't fall into the lazy habit of using pronouns. Take he, she, it, they, them, and this out of your vocabulary. Or at least always ask yourself if you have a choice. If you do, and you can easily substitute a concrete subject for a pronoun, do it. Your writing will be livelier, clearer, and easier to read. And that's what "it" is all about!