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Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

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STYLE<br />

<strong>The</strong> clinician can play an important role on the research team. He or she<br />

is invaluable in gathering physical data from his or her patients, and<br />

equally useful is his or her role in gathering subjective data based on his<br />

or her impressions and feelings.<br />

<strong>The</strong>re isn't a "magic number" of how often is <strong>to</strong>o often for these<br />

expressions; certainly, a few appearances in a large document is<br />

unintrusive. If the need arises frequently, however, it is best <strong>to</strong> vary<br />

he or she with other strategies.<br />

Note: Some writers like <strong>to</strong> vary this expression as she or he, and<br />

there is no logical reason why the female pronoun shouldn't come<br />

first. Realistically though, since this phrasing isn't standard, it is<br />

likely <strong>to</strong> cause momentary distraction or annoyance on the part of<br />

some of your readers. If you recognize and accept that, then by all<br />

means go with the variation! Perhaps if enough people do, it will<br />

eventually become standard as well.<br />

ALTERNATING HE AND SHE<br />

In some genres of writing it works well <strong>to</strong> change about half the<br />

occurrences of he <strong>to</strong> she. This strategy can be applied <strong>to</strong> made-up<br />

scenarios or case his<strong>to</strong>ries, where the reference is <strong>to</strong> a single individual<br />

and a female example would fit in just as naturally as a male<br />

one.<br />

It works less well if the reference is <strong>to</strong> a group or population. For<br />

example, in the following, it would be difficult for readers <strong>to</strong> assume<br />

that men are included:<br />

<strong>The</strong> survey indicated that the average newspaper reader prefers her<br />

news in a concise form.<br />

Every worker we spoke <strong>to</strong> says that she fears for her future and that of<br />

her family.<br />

USING THE PLURAL<br />

Going with the plural form instead of the singular is a simple and<br />

effective strategy if the context is in fact referring <strong>to</strong> more than one<br />

person. For example:<br />

INSTEAD OF: We asked each participant <strong>to</strong> speak openly about his<br />

feelings.<br />

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