Not using "he/she"

Not using “he/she”

Let’s take a look at this sentence:

A student who does not submit his or her assignments on time will have him or her score reduced by 5 percent for late submission. He or she could also not be allowed to take the final exam.

In the above sentence, his/her, him/her/ and he/she are not wrong; they are just awkward.  In speaking, and especially in writing, every time you use a gender-specific noun ( a noun that denotes either male or female) such as student, employee, traveller, etc. as your subject,  you will have to use he/she and their derivatives.

How to avoid using he or she.

Solution: Change the noun from singular to plural. Make sure to change all singular pronouns to plural and agree all verbs with the subject.

So, our sample sentence above can be re-written as:

Students who do not submit their assignments on time will have their score reduced by 5 percent for late submission. They could also not be allowed to take the final exam.