Re: His/Her v. Their

[Kathleen MacDowell <kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Good decision, Becca :-)

It's so easy to get caught up in fixing things that don't necessarily need
to be changed. In such situations I try to stick to things that are
incorrect, unless I have time on my hands.

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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-- 
Kathleen MacDowell
kathleen -dot- eamd -at- gmail -dot- com
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