Re: His/Her v. Their

Subject: Re: His/Her v. Their
From: Becca <becca_price -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>, tech2wr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:24:40 -0700 (PDT)

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"
Â
The next step then says what the next actor should be doing with the form.
Â
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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Follow-Ups:

References:
His/Her v. Their: From: Becca
RE: His/Her v. Their: From: Combs, Richard

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