'The following' — vague forward reference

'The following table', 'the following list' — forward pointers that break when content moves or is excerpted.

What ProfText flags

Positional reference. Fragile if document is restructured or content extracted.

Phrases this rule catches

• the following
• see below
• below is
• the above
• aforementioned

How to fix it

Name the item explicitly: 'Table 2: Revenue Breakdown'.

Why this matters

Forward references work in print, where the next element is fixed; they work less well in web content reorganised by editors or excerpted by search engines. Name the referent directly where possible ('the error-code table below') or, better, restructure so the reference is unnecessary.

Languages

• en
• fr
• de
• it

Detection pattern

\b(the\s+following|see\s+below|below\s+is|the\s+above|aforementioned)\b

Related rules

• 'Above' and 'below' layout references'As shown above', 'see below' — references that depend on page layout and break in re-flowed or copy-pasted text.
• Unanchored 'this' and 'that''This is significant' — 'this' what? Anaphoric pronouns without clear referents introduce ambiguity at every paragraph break.
• References to 'the previous section''As discussed in the previous section' — breaks the moment a heading is renamed or content is reordered.