Re: His/Her v. Their

[Kaye Adkins <kadkinsphd -at- gmail -dot- com>]

If you have two actors, you can assign a specific gender to each one to
(maybe) avoid confusion. If you have several actors, it may be least
confusing to avoid pronouns altogether. Repetitive, but less confusing.

Kaye Adkins

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Becca <becca_price -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:

> In this situation, we have a number of diferent actors. Each step may
> refer to a different actor. The author of the document wrote things like
>
> "The SME should print his/her name and sign it on the Signature line"
>
> The next step then says what the next actor should be doing with the form.
>
> I don't think I can get away with totally reorganizing or editing the
> document to put it all in the second person assumed format.  I have to take
> baby steps here with how much I can get away with editing.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Becca
>
>
> >________________________________
> >From: "Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>
> >To: Becca <becca -at- di -dot- org>; tech2wr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
> >Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 10:50 AM
> >Subject: RE: His/Her v. Their
> >
> >Becca wrote:
> >
> >> Some documents I'm editing of necessity give procedures in third person
> >> rather than the assumed (you) second person. There's no way around
> >> this.
> >
> >Occasionally, it's appropriate to describe to the reader what someone
> else needs to do. But I'm highly skeptical that a whole set of documents
> "of necessity" describes all procedures in the third person.
> >
> >> In the document I'm editing, they use His/Her. My inclination is to use
> >> "their" - comments?
> >
> >When I have to describe to the reader the actions of a third person, I
> avoid possessive pronouns entirely. Or use the plural noun and pronoun.
> >
> >"The operator sets the default widget options."
> >"End users can customize their widget options."
> >
> >
> >Richard G. Combs
> >Senior Technical Writer
> >Polycom, Inc.
> >richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> >303-223-5111
> >------
> >rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> >303-903-6372
> >------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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-- 
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