

Although the pronoun "they" is only a plural pronoun in some style guides, APA encourages writers to use "they" as a singular or plural pronoun with the specific intention of embracing gender diversity.Īccording to the APA Style blog, “when transgender and gender nonconforming people (including agender, genderqueer, and other communities) use the singular "they" as their pronoun, writers should likewise use the singular "they" when writing about them” (para. Recently, many academic and popular publications have started accepting the use of the pronoun "they" as a singular pronoun, meaning writers use "they" to correspond to singular subjects in an effort to avoid gendered pronouns. Since the subject is singular ("a community group"), the pronoun ("it") must also be singular.Since the subject is singular ("neither"), the pronoun ("he") must also be singular.Įxample: A community group of teachers is meeting tonight to see if it can find a way to help students improve their SAT scores.Since the subject is singular ("each "), the pronoun ("his or her") must also be singular.Įxample: Neither Bob nor Alex believed he would receive the award.Example : Each student must find his or her own note-taking strategy. See our webpage on subject–verb agreement for more on singular and plural subjects.

Remember to find the true subject of the sentence to determine if the pronoun should be singular or plural.

When writing a sentence, using the same word more than once can get repetitive.
