A pronoun should refer to a specific antecedent, not to a word that is implied but not present in the sentence.

The pronoun them referred to Ann’s braids (implied by the term braiding), but the word braids did not appear in the sentence.

Modifiers, such as possessives, cannot serve as anteced-ents. A modifier may strongly imply the noun that a pronoun might logically refer to, but it is not itself that noun.

Using the possessive form of an author’s name to introduce a source leads to a problem later in this sentence: The pronoun she cannot refer logically to a possessive modifier (Jamaica Kincaid’s). The revision substitutes the noun Jamaica Kincaid for the pronoun she, thereby eliminating the problem. (For more on writing with sources in MLA style, see 55.)