IMPORTANT: This topic is about pronoun reference. However, all of the following examples contain discussions of multiple subjects—not just pronoun reference. Therefore, in addition to pronoun reference, you are going to learn a lot of different things about good writing and rewriting.

Example 1

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

Using the plural word their (twice) as a pronoun for the singular noun user.

DISCUSSION

Because a pronoun refers to a noun or takes the place of that noun, you have to use the correct singular or plural version of the pronoun. If the pronoun takes the place of a singular noun, you have to use a singular pronoun. If the pronoun takes the place of a plural noun, use a plural pronoun.

REVISION

Before

When you add an existing adult FakeCorp user as a family member, all you need is either their FakeCorp username or their email address.

After

When you add an existing adult FakeCorp user as a family member, all you need is the FakeCorp user’s username or email address.

When you add an existing adult FakeCorp user as a family member, all you need is his or her FakeCorp username or email address.

REMARKS

The phenomenon of incorrect pronoun reference in writing gets worse every year. I really don’t know why. Being correct about pronoun reference was stressed when I was a student back in the day. Do English teachers teach it anymore? I will say that when I break out my work week into specific tasks, the task of fixing incorrect pronoun references is probably at the very top of the list of hours billed to my employer.

I’ll close with this quote by Casey Stengel about his hapless 1962 Mets team: “You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’” I could say the same thing about my engineers who don’t get it about incorrect pronoun reference because they keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Example 2

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

Incorrect pronoun reference.

DISCUSSION

Business unit is singular. The pronoun their is plural. Therefore, in the two places where their appears, replace their with the singular pronoun its.

REVISION

Before

A business unit (BU) that wants to enable support for the local ban feature must work with their service representative to add a BU-specific local ban entry into their client configuration.

After

A business unit (BU) that wants to enable support for the local ban feature must work with its service representative to add a BU-specific local ban entry into its client configuration.

Example 3

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

The pronoun their refers back to the subject member. The word member is singular, but the word their is plural.
The word that should be changed to who because it refers to the member. Member is a human person, not a non-human thing.

DISCUSSION

Because a pronoun refers to a noun or takes the place of that noun, you have to use the correct singular or plural version of the pronoun in technical writing. If the pronoun takes the place of a singular noun, you have to use a singular pronoun. On the other hand, if the pronoun takes the place of a plural noun, use a plural pronoun. Also, use the word who when referring to a person, such as a member. Non-human things take the word that.

REVISION

Before

You would call this to refresh the UI for any member that wants to update any of their information.

After

You would call this to refresh the UI for any member who wants to update any of his or her information.

You would call this to refresh the UI for any member who wants to update any personal information

Example 4

REWRITE THESE SENTENCES

PROBLEM

More examples of faulty pronoun reference.

DISCUSSION

His or Her

The pronoun phrase his or her is a hat-tip to political correctness. Of course, we strive to be gender neutral. But I think the phrase his or her is ham-handed writing. It sounds like the company’s Legal and HR departments got together to solve the gender reference problem once and for all. I urge you to write around it. Do not use the phrase any more than you must.

REVISIONS

Before

If they choose to create a new account in that time interval, the user’s email is pre-populated automatically in the new profile form.

The user then enters more information about themselves before clicking the blue Create Account button.

When a user forgets their password or member name, they can request that their password or the list of member names be sent to them.

After

If the user chooses to create a new account in that time interval, the user’s email is pre-populated automatically in the new profile form.

The user then enters more personal information before clicking the blue Create Account button.

When a user forgets his or her password or member name, the user can ask to be sent the password or the list of member names.

Example 5

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

This sentence has an incorrect pronoun reference. Can you spot it?

DISCUSSION

The word their appears three times in the sentence. The first instance is incorrect (emphasis added):

The FakeCorp ID iOS Library allows their users to log in to their existing FakeCorp ID accounts or create a new FakeCorp ID account from their iOS devices (for example, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch).

The subject of the sentence is the word Library. Library is a singular noun. Therefore, the correct pronoun is its.

The second and third instances of the word their are correct because their refers back to the word users. Users is plural; therefore, their is OK.

REVISION

Before

The FakeCorp ID iOS Library allows their users to log in to their existing FakeCorp ID accounts or create a new FakeCorp ID account from their iOS devices (for example, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch).

After

The FakeCorp ID iOS Library allows its users to log in to their existing FakeCorp ID accounts or create new FakeCorp ID accounts from their iOS devices (for example, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch).

The FakeCorp ID iOS Library allows a user to log in to his or her existing FakeCorp ID account or create a new FakeCorp ID account from the iOS device (for example, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch).

Example 6

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

Incorrect pronoun reference, in several places, is the main problem. The pronoun reference problem is two-fold: singular vs. plural and human vs. non-human.

Also, to improve readability, we can (a) divide the sentence into two sentences and (b) clean up some wordiness.

DISCUSSION

Incorrect Pronoun Reference

Singular vs. plural—The pronoun references are to site owner (in blue—see below), which is singular. There are three plural incorrect pronoun references (in red) to the singular subject.
Human vs. non-human—Furthermore, the words themselves, they, and they, are incorrect because they make it look like the author is referring to an actual person. Remember, we are referring to a corporate website, which is a non-human entity. Therefore, use the word it and its variants. Also, the author uses the word who (in hot pink), which erroneously refers to a person. Use the word what.

Here is the example sentence again:

The coloring of the first piece of the address bar shows that the site’s owner has gone a step further and offered themselves up for extensive organization vetting and authentication procedures, to prove the organization behind the site is who they say they are.

Simple Sentences

Put a period after the word authentication. Then start a new sentence.

Along with the wordiness cleanup (see the next discussion), this improves the fog index from 17 years of education to 10 years.

Wordiness

Here is the example sentence with the wordy passages in brackets:

The coloring of the first piece of the address bar shows [that] the site’s owner has gone a step further and offered themselves up for [extensive] organization vetting and authentication [procedures], to prove the organization behind the site is who they say they are.

REVISION

Before

After

The coloring of the first piece of the address bar shows the site’s owner is offering itself up for organizational vetting and authentication. This proves the organization behind the site is what it says it is.

Example 7

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

The pronoun they.

DISCUSSION

In the first part of the sentence, we have two different plural nouns: emails and users. Near the end of the sentence, we have the plural pronoun they. Does they refer to emails or users?

Once you read (or re-read) the sentence carefully, it is clear they refers to emails. The clue is the phrase available in production. It is emails that are available in production, not users.

What we want to avoid, however, is confusing the reader in any way or forcing the reader to re-read the sentence.

Instead of using the word they, be specific. Specify emails.

REVISION

Before

If you do choose to customize emails for users of your site, the custom emails must be approved by the customer information management (CIM) group before they are available in production.

After

If you do choose to customize emails for users of your site, the custom emails must be approved by the customer information management (CIM) group before the emails are available in production.

Example 8

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

The word their.

DISCUSSION

The word their is plural. The reference is to business unit, which is singular. A business unit is a non-human entity; it is not a person. Therefore, use the word its. Its is singular for a non-human reference.

REVISION

Before

A business unit (BU) that wants to enable support for the local ban feature must work with its support engineer to add a BU-specific local ban entry into their client configuration during onboarding.

After

A business unit (BU) that wants to enable support for the local ban feature must work with its support engineer to add a BU-specific local ban entry into its client configuration during onboarding.

Example 9

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

The subject user is singular. The pronoun references them and their are plural. Everything must be either singular or plural.

DISCUSSION

See the Revision section.

REVISION

Before

You can send a user back into a high trust state by asking them to type their password again using the function reAuth.

After

You can send a user back into a high trust state by asking the user to type his or her password again using the function reAuth.

You can send users back into a high trust state by asking them to type their passwords again using the function reAuth.

Example 10

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

We need to work on these problems:

Pronoun reference
Wordiness
Usage

DISCUSSION

Pronoun Reference

Users (plural) don’t get a username (singular) or reset a password (singular). A user has a username and password. Users have separate usernames and passwords.

The sentence is written in such a way as to imply all these many users have the same username and password. They don’t.

Incorrect pronoun reference appears to be a chronic problem with my developer-authors at the mighty FakeCorp Company. No matter how many times I make the necessary changes, my authors never seem to learn. They keep making incorrect references over and over again.

On the other hand, the mighty FakeCorp Company pays me a nice hourly rate to make these trivial fixes. I guess I should be grateful.

Wordiness

The wordiness is in brackets:

The account recovery page [is designed to help] users….

See the Revision section for a more direct way to say the same thing.

Usage

Don’t say retrieve. Say get.

REVISION

Before

The account recovery page is designed to help users retrieve their username or reset their password.

After

The account recovery page helps users get their usernames or reset their passwords.

Example 11

REWRITE THIS SENTENCE

PROBLEM

Once again, incorrect pronoun reference. The word user is singular and the word they is plural.

DISCUSSION

A few years ago, I watched an NFL football game on TV. The team on offense, the Dallas Cowboys, ran the tailback off right tackle for seven straight plays. Over and over again it was BAM—another five yards! Another six yards! Another four yards! I don’t remember which team was playing defense. Whoever it was, they simply could not stop this one play. The offensive coordinator for the Cowboys obviously saw no reason to change plays if the other team was incapable of stopping it.

Similarly, my developer-authors keep making these pronoun reference errors. It’s a daily occurrence. As long as this continues, I am going to keep adding these incorrect pronoun references to my Hall of Shame.

People, this is not complicated. All of my developer-authors are intelligent. Everyone has the capacity to learn. So, here is my plea: Learn how to do it right—starting today—and keep doing it right from now on.

Thank you for listening.

REVISION

Before

Once the user successfully fills out the form, they are signed in.

After

Once the user successfully fills out the form, the user is signed in.

Once the user successfully fills out the form, he or she is signed in.