ng: I always liked engineers, and I have chosen that as my
profession.

Right: I always liked engineering, and I have chosen it as my
profession.

Absurd: When the baby is through drinking milk, it should be
disconnected and put in boiling water. [The central idea in the
reader's mind is _baby_, not _milk-bottle_. The writer may have
been thinking about the _bottle_, but he did not make the word
emphatic; in fact, he did not express it at all.]

Right: When the baby is through drinking milk, the bottle
should be taken apart and put in boiling water.

Note.--Ordinarily, do not refer to the title in the first line of a
theme. The reader expects you to assert something, and face forward, not
to turn back to what you have said in the title.

Faulty: Color Photography

I am interested in this new development of science. For
a long time I ...

Right: Color Photography

Taking pictures in color has long appealed to me as an interesting
possibility ...

Exercise:

1. In Shakespeare's play _Othello_ he makes Iago a fiend.

2. The noodle-cutter is a kitchen device which saves time in
making this troublesome dish.

3. The life of a forester is interesting, and I intend to
follow that profession.

4. He took down his great-grandfather's old sword, who had
carried it at Bunker Hill.

5. I was always making experiments in science, and I naturally
acquired a liking for periodicals of that nature.

=Broad Reference=

=22. Do not use a pronoun to refer broadly to a general idea. Supply a
definite antecedent or abandon the pronoun.=

Wrong: The tapper strikes the gong, which continues as long as
the push button is pressed. [The writer intends that _which_
shall refer to the entire preceding clause, but the reference
is intercepted by the word _gong_.]

Right [supplying a definite antecedent]: The tapper strikes the
gong, a process which continues as long as the push button is
pressed. [Or, abandoning the pronoun] The tapper strikes the
gong as long as the push button is pressed.

Wrong: Read the directions which are printed on the bottle and
it may save you from making a mistake.

Right [supplying a definite antecedent]: Read the directions
which are printed on the bottle. This precaution may save you
f