The Volcano Poster: Editing a Run-On Draft
Priya, a Year 6 pupil, has drafted this paragraph for her 'Volcanoes' poster. Her teacher has set a paired-editing task with a checklist: every sentence must make sense on its own, and every pronoun must have only one possible referent.
When Priya met Anya at the library she said that her project on volcanoes was nearly finished, and the librarian, who had been tidying the returns trolley, smiled at them, however the computer had crashed, so they couldn't print it there, despite this they decided to go back to school early. The poster was colourful it had three diagrams.
Anya claims the paragraph contains 'two unclear parts and three punctuation errors'. Priya disagrees: she says it is perfectly clear because she knows what she meant.
1. Identify the unclear part of the first sentence. Explain why the reader cannot resolve it, and how Priya's claim ('it is clear because I know what I meant') fails the checklist.
Read the worked answer
The unclear part is 'she said that her project'. Two pronouns sit side by side with no way to decide their referents:
- she could be Priya or Anya;
- her could be Priya's project or Anya's project.
That gives four possible readings, and all of them are grammatical. Nothing in the sentence rules any of them out.
Priya's defence fails because the checklist is about the reader, not the writer. A sentence is ambiguous if a reader who lacks the writer's private knowledge must guess. Priya's knowledge is not on the page, so the sentence does not 'make sense on its own'. Note also that it/them/there are fine here: 'them' can only be the two girls, and 'there' can only be the library, so only one referent is available for each.
2. Rewrite the paragraph so that it is correctly punctuated and unambiguous. Keep every piece of information; do not invent facts. State which reading of the ambiguous sentence you have chosen and what is lost by choosing it.
Read the worked answer
Model rewrite (four sentences):
When Priya met Anya at the library, Priya said that her volcano project was nearly finished. The librarian, who had been tidying the returns trolley, smiled at them; however, the computer had crashed, so they could not print the project there. Despite this, they decided to go back to school early. The poster was colourful: it had three diagrams.
Fixes made:
- 'she said' → 'Priya said' (pronoun replaced by a name).
- 'her project' → 'her volcano project' (repeat the noun so only one owner is possible).
- The two comma splices (', however' and ', despite this') become a semicolon + capital, or a new sentence.
- 'colourful it had' becomes a colon or a full stop.
What is lost: the rewrite commits to Priya being the speaker and the project's owner. If Anya was the speaker, the original meaning has changed. Only Priya can settle that, so a careful editor asks the writer rather than guessing - that is the real judgement here.
3. Two pupils offer fixes for the ambiguity. Sam changes 'her' to 'Priya's'. Alex swaps the order to 'When Anya met Priya at the library'. Which fix works, and which one only appears to work?
Read the worked answer
Sam's fix works. 'Priya said that Priya's project…' leaves the owner of the project with exactly one possible referent. A named possessor cannot be misunderstood.
Alex's fix does not work. After the swap the sentence reads 'When Anya met Priya at the library she said that her project…'. 'She' still has two candidates (Anya or Priya), and 'her' still has two candidates. Swapping the names changes which reading is more likely, not which readings are possible - and 'more likely' is not the same as 'only one possible referent' in the checklist.
The lesson: fixing a pronoun problem means removing a candidate, not reordering the sentence to make one candidate sound more natural.