Teacher Wall of Shame 3

 So here is a teacher, who presumably teaches English, and has posted on her website about correcting vague pronouns. The problem is that either she does not understand the concept herself (most probable) or she has relied too much on other websites to explain it for her. Her statements are that "this" is a vague pronoun and needs to be turned into an adjective and followed by a noun to clarify a sentence. That statement in itself is not necessarily wrong--at least I can't think of an example where "this" should not be followed by a noun at the moment. However, her limitation of specific pronouns as being "vague" is wrong. "She" is not on her list, but it most certainly can be a vague pronoun. Consider these horrible sentences:

Sally and Megan went to school. She rode a bike while she walked. 

Who rode the bike? Who walked? It is obvious that "she," used in this context, is vague. In most cases authors don't realize they are committing this error because they know what they are talking about. In these cases, most readers assume what is being referred to by the pronoun correctly.

The experiment was performed in Toby's backyard. It was fenced in to keep onlookers out.

Was the experiment fenced in or was Toby's backyard fenced in? Most people would assume it was the backyard, but if Toby did not have a fence around his backyard, then temporarily fencing in the experiment would be easier than doing the whole thing. Now, where I could not think of an example of 
"this is" that was not vague. I most certainly can think of an example where "it is" is not, despite the teacher's protestations. 

The experiment will be quick. It is found on page 345. 

There is no question as to what "it is" refers in the above sentence. "It is" is not vague because the only thing to which it could refer is "the experiment." 

Perhaps the above teacher was sick the day they taught this at her school, but that is no excuse for misinforming her students about it. She needs to figure out what vague pronouns are. Part of her problem is that she went to https://www.aje.com and https://writingcommons.org/ Both of these websites are advertising their own paid writing courses and editing services. Why would they explain anything clearly to anyone? They want you to pay them to do it. Ironically, it seems the Writing Commons link is broken, probably because they lifted the sentence they used from an state university website worksheet: https://www.unh.edu/student-success/sites/default/files/media/2022-07/resources-vague-pronouns-writing.pdf If you go to that worksheet, you will find an excellent, brief definition for vague pronouns.