In your thesis writing, you need to refer to the same term very frequently. However, if you keep using the same words every time, your writing will sound very repetitious. Read the following example to see what we mean.
What happens when you don't use pronouns…
Example:
Mark offered Lisa the box of chocolates. She took two of the chocolates out of the box of chocolates. She put one of the chocolates down on the saucer of her cup. She started eating the other one of the chocolates she had taken out of the box of chocolates. Then she started eating the other chocolate that she had taken out of the box of chocolates. "These chocolates out of the box of chocolates are delicious" she said. "Is that chocolate out of the box of chocolates delicious?" he replied. "Why don’t you take another chocolate out of the box of chocolates?" he suggested. "I will take another chocolate out of the box of chocolates" she replied. And so she took another chocolate out of the box of chocolates. (Eggins 1994, p. 91)
Word count 131
Exercise:
As you can see, this paragraph is not only very repetitious, it is also hard to read. How can you fix this paragraph by using pronouns?
See answer:
Mark offered Lisa the box of chocolates. She took two out of the box. Placing one on her saucer, she started eating the other. “These are delicious,” she said. “Are they?” he replied. “Then why don’t you take another?” he suggested. “I will”, she replied. And so she did. (Eggins 1994, p.92)
Word count 49
Summary
From this exercise, you can see that using pronouns to refer to key terms can improve the flow of your writing, as well as making it more concise (compare word counts).