word usage - Use of 'this' – relates to the directly preceding noun

I am a german native speaker. I am currently in the finishing stages of writing a thesis. One of my advisors (English is his mother tongue) provided feedback on the language of my writing.

One point of his feedback is that I do not properly use the word this. He says that in German this often is used to relate to something general or to relate to something which occurs one or more sentences before. In English, however, this should be used to relate to the directly preceding noun.

One example would be:

We follow the vision of X because it enables to solve issues Y and Z. Hence, this will form the basis of the presented research.

Or:

In the first phase we will review available literature. This will show previous research efforts from two perspectives.

I do not want to debate whether his feedback makes sense or not. I rather would like to know, how I can deal with his feedback accordingly? That is, find a proper way to avoid using this in these cases.

Answer

As you should already know, your usage in both cases is perfectly fine but obviously that is not the concern here.

For the first example:

We follow the vision of X. This enables us to solve issues Y and Z and will form the basis of the presented research.

By rearranging a little bit, you end up using this again but in a manner that your advisor should deem as 'acceptable'.

Second example:

In the first phase we will review available literature to show previous research efforts from two perspectives.

Either using to or which to merge the two sentences will avoid the issue.