Crumbling Sentences: Isolated and Expletive Pronouns Weaken the Foundation of Clear Medical Writing

The subject is the most foundational element of a sentence. When the subject is clear and concrete, the sentence starts strong, and readers can easily maintain their forward momentum in the story. When the subject is unclear, the sentence crumbles, and readers must backtrack in the text or carry a cognitive load as they continue reading. In medical writing, unclear subjects often appear as ambiguous pronouns in the form of isolated pronouns and expletive pronouns. These constructions create more work for readers by using an unclear referent or no referent at all. Fortunately, these 2 constructions can be refined to use clear, concrete nouns that help readers quickly and easily locate the subject of a sentence and continue forward in the story.