Keeping Gender Bias out of Writing for Business

ProEdit reports:

"In the past, it was considered acceptable to simply refer to a person as he or him or man. However, along with the integration of women into the workforce came more respect for women as individuals, and it is expected that we show that respect in our writing...To maintain credibility and accuracy in your content, you should avoid using gender bias in writing...Using the command form of verbs allows you to use the second person (you and your) instead of the third person (he and she)...By making your nouns and pronouns plural, you can use they and their to avoid gender bias...In many cases, the pronoun is not necessary in the sentence, and it can simply be removed...An easy fix for gender bias is to replace the pronoun with a noun such as individual, user, participant, person, etc...Oftentimes, it is effective to repeat the noun instead of using a pronoun. This is especially effective when you have more than one noun in the sentence that the pronoun could be referring to...In some instances, you can replace the pronoun with an article (a, an, or the)...Sometimes the best route is to rephrase the sentence to avoid gender bias."