Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT
The Mouse did rwt rwtice this question, but hurriedly
went on, " '-found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling
to meet William and offer him the crown . ... ' "
LEWIS CARROLL, Alice in Wonderland
The antecedent of a pronoun is the word to which it refers. For
example, in the preceding sentence, the word pronoun is the antecedent
of the pronoun it. The antecedent may exist in the same
sentence as the pronoun or in an earlier sentence, or, less commonly,
it may come after. Some pronouns logically do not have antecedents;
for example, Who was at the door? And certain pronouns are themselves
antecedents for other pronouns; more on this below.
The relationship between a pronoun and its antecedent must be
crystal clear. Watch for errors such as the following:
MISSING ANTECEDENTS
Sometimes a writer uses a pronoun, failing to notice that the entity
the pronoun is intended to refer to hasn't in fact been explicitly
named. For example:
Research has shown that men are generally more satisfied than women
with marriage, and that they seek divorce less often. It also has shown
that they live longer than bachelors.
Men live longer than bachelors? The writer obviously means married
men, but the preceding sentence doesn't actually contain that
term, so they ends up latching onto the wrong entity. Since the
intended antecedent is not explicitly stated, it is not possible to have
a pronoun substitute for it.
BETTER: Research has shown that men are generally more satisfied than
women with marriage, and that they seek divorce less often. It also has
shown that married men live longer than bachelors.
Similarly,
The use of free-format tables for writing software specifications may seem
counter to the general trend; however, they give the developer certain
advantages.
Here, they is intended to refer to free-format tables, but note
that the subject of the sentence is actually the use of-a singular.
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