by Jennie Ruby
When a desperate-sounding student asked me this week why it was incorrect to start a sentence with the word this, I realized I was once again in Bogus Grammar Rule land. This bogus rule was a new one to me, but some editor somewhere was making my student miserable over it.
First, let's be clear that the actual rules of grammar, as found in grammar books, do not forbid starting a sentence with the word this. The only possible origin of such a rule is the problem of the unclear antecedent. An unclear antecedent occurs when a pronoun such as this refers back to a vague idea rather than to an actual noun or explicit statement. Some editor or teacher probably took a shortcut to help writers avoid unclear use of the word this by forbidding them from using it at the front of a sentence. Now the editor who was taught the shortcut is enforcing it as though it were a real grammar rule.
The actual guidelines for starting a sentence with this are a little more nuanced. Degrees of clarity or confusion can be created, depending on what the word this is referring back to.
Clear: The pronoun refers back to an actual noun.
- To help make the process quicker, we created a document formatting template. This can be used to format new documents automatically. [If you can literally place your finger on the antecedent of this--in this case the word template--then you have a clear antecedent. You could have said This template.]
Shaky: The pronoun refers to a phrase, clause, or sentence.
- The agency orders supplies from a number of different vendors. This means that no single vendor has a monopoly over the supply line. [The word this refers back to the entire sentence about vendors. Although using the word this to refer to an entire sentence is a little risky, most readers would not find this example confusing.]
Unclear: The pronoun refers to a vague idea that is not even stated explicitly in the preceding sentence.
- The agency orders supplies from a number of different vendors who have different shipping practices, expense the costs through different accounts, and charge rates calculated through different algorithms. This keeps us honest. [What is it that keeps us honest? Is it having different vendors? Is it that the vendors have different methods? Is it that the complexity of the calculations keeps us from being able to cheat about the shipping costs? Most readers will have trouble understanding what the word this is referring to, and thus what the sentence means.]
The bottom line is that you can start a sentence with the word this. But you do have to make sure its antecedent--the noun or concept it points back to--is clear.
Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? If so, consider attending my Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts class. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts class.
About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
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