Here’s a simple yet powerful three-step editing tip to add clarity to everything you write.

1. Search through your draft and highlight every instance of demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those). Demonstratives depend on a frame of reference; they indicate specific entities and the meaning of each pronoun requires context for understanding. When we speak with these pronouns, we often point to or indicate the specific entity with body language. Words on a page or screen lack that advantage.

2. Check to make sure every demonstrative pronoun points forward to a specific word rather than backward to a (vague) concept.

Wrong: Teachers often tell students it’s wrong to start sentences with and or but. This causes problems.
Right: Teachers often tell students it’s wrong to start sentences with and or but. This generalization causes problems.

Wrong: One Fourth of July when I was a girl, I was listening to the “1812 Overture” at Hermann Park, when a tremendously loud noise startled me. This includes a canon at its climatic moment.
Right: One Fourth of July when I was a girl, I was listening to the “1812 Overture” at Hermann Park, when a tremendously loud noise startled me. This composition includes a canon at its climatic moment.

3. Determine what your stand-alone demonstratives are pointing to and add a word that helps the reader see the connection. Often you will need to label the category of the concept you are pointing at, such as This catalogue of names, Those instructions, or This common misunderstanding. Sometimes you might discover that not only was your grammar vague, but your thinking was too.

Requiring yourself to articulate the connections between your points will help weed out faulty or lazy logic. Your readers will thank you.