<p>Hi all, </p>
<p>If someone could clarify a lingering problem that I constantly come across in the writing (grammar section), I would be absolutely grateful. Here are two separate questions, which I feel are testing the vague pronouns. </p>
<p>1)
Seeds of Peace camp in Otisfield, Maine, is unlike any other camp in the world. [It] brings together teenagers from opposite sides of conflicts all over the globe. </p>
<p>In my opinion the 'it' is vague. The reason being is that 'it' refers to the camp, which is not mentioned in the sentence. It is only mentioned in the previous sentence. I thought that each sentence has to be viewed in isolation. </p>
<p>2) Often unreasonable demands are made on an employee to satisfy the customers. [This concern illustrates] an employer's lack of consideration for employees. </p>
<p>The answer is E, 'such treatment demonstrates'</p>
<p>I put E as the answer. I believe that 'This' is vague if we view the respective sentence in isolation. 'This' refers to a noun or something that is not in the respective sentence. In fact, 'this' refers to something in the previous sentence i.e. 'this' refers to the 'unreasonable demands' talked about, since this is not part of the second sentence 'this' is vague. Am I correct in saying this? </p>
<p>The above questions were taking from improving paragraph questions</p>
<p>I am indeed quite confused by the vague pronoun </p>
<p>Many thanks
Eddy :)</p>
<p>English writing would be tedious and repetitive if every sentence had to stand on its own. Pick up any book, or any newspaper article and follow the pronouns from sentence to sentence – e.g. it, they, them, this, everyone, and so on.</p>
<p>I agree, so does that mean in both cases then the pronouns highlighted are not vague?</p>
<p>cheers</p>
<p>Then how do I know when something is vague or not. Just to clarify, an ambiguous pronoun is not the same as a vague pronoun correct. That is, a pronoun that refers to more than one noun in the sentence is ambiguous, and a pronoun that refers to a noun that is not in the sentence is vague, are two different things correct? </p>
<p>Thanks Fogcity</p>
<p>Also, sorry :), a pronoun can only refer to a noun not a pronoun, right? The reason I ask is that the question that I posted many days ago:</p>
<p>“Many changes occurred while she was president of the college; these changes increased its educational quality and effectiveness” </p>
<p>Is still bugging me!!! Why is ‘its’ vague when it clearly has an antecedent in ‘college’s’? :S. Someone mentioned that ‘its’ is ambiguous because ‘its’ refers to both ‘she’ and ‘college’, but I never knew that pronouns can refer to pronouns too! </p>
<p>I was looking for different view points as I wasn’t entirely convinced and noticed other people have had the same problem with feedback suggesting that the question is bogus! </p>
<p>Thanks a lot mate
Eddy</p>