In my writing, I tend to use pronouns very nonchalauntly and not put very much thought into them. After this week's lesson, I know I need to be more careful. If used correctly, pronouns can be great, but if not, your readers may not be able to make sense of what you're trying to say. For example, the sentence I just wrote would be much more confusing if I had used ambigous pronouns:
"If used correctly, they can be great, but if not, they may not be able to make sense of what your trying to say."
There is no way for readers to know what "they" is referring to, and this sentence essentially becomes useless. As a journalist, none of your sentences should ever be useless. An important tool I learned this week for checking your pronouns is this; look at your sentence backwards, identify the pronoun, if the noun directly before the pronoun is the noun to which the pronoun is referring to, your pronoun is being used correctly, if not, change it.
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