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Topic : Should I write his/her or their? I am new in this site and I hope to convey my question in a correct manner. Any employee is also entitled to receive a reference letter. This document must - selfpublishingguru.com

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I am new in this site and I hope to convey my question in a correct manner.

Any employee is also entitled to receive a reference letter. This document must contain an assessment on the performance of the employee in their post(s).

My question is, should I write "their" or "his/her".
As far as I understand, "their" is used to prevent gender-based discrimination.
In advance, I would like to thank you for your assistance.


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Use what feels right for the character.
I am old school SWE (Standard Written English) and was taught to respect number and case, so consider they/them plural pronouns.
What matters is what is right for the work. Let’s assume for a second that your character is female and she just wants to hide it for reasons of her own. Perhaps she needs a job that is for men only (no, I’m not missing the point) so chooses to hide gender.
How would she think of herself? What is her internal dialogue? Does she think of herself as a themselves? If so, run with it. Be true to the character and it will work. Be false to the character and it will ring false and fall flat.
My current work uses the F word a lot, as a verb, adjective, exclamation, gerund and I don’t swear. My characters do swear, as it suits their world and their situation. I am being true to them.


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You should use "their" but never with the wording you Posted.
Try "All employees are also entitled to receive reference letters. Such documents must contain assessments of the performance of the employees in their posts."
It is among those who don't care about the language, or at best consider preventing the possibility of gender-based discrimination more important than learning to use the language properly that "Their" is used as you suggest.


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All depends on the employee and the people who would be presented with this reference.
As of today, using "they" is considered "progressive", while using "he/she" is considered "conservative".
If there is any clear indication which pronoun employee would prefer, go with it. However, it is not so often that this preference is known.
Second, if your organization has any guidelines or standard practices for using pronouns, follow them. Note that this is a quickly changing subject, so if your organization exclusively used "he/she" five years ago, it may be different by now.
And last, use your own judgement. Who would be the likely recipient of this reference? Any chance they would like it one way or the other?


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In certain circles, using "they/their" to refer to a singular person of unspecified gender, might already be commonplace. However I can assure you this new language construct is far from universally know, even for native English speakers.
So for a lot of people using "they/their" to refer to a single person just looks plain weird. I think a reference letter which looks weird to the reader is of limited use for a person. Therefore if the employee in question is just a regular, old-fashioned male or female I would just stick with "he/his" or "she/her". Only if the employee in question has a non-standard (not male or female) gender I would consider "they/their".
UPDATE 10/10/2020
Based on the comments and some of the other answers I am going to slightly change my answer. I now think that the choose of the pronoun in a reference letter should depend on the (likely) target audience of that letter. So if for instance the reference letter is going to be used to secure a position at a woke US-university, by all means use "they/their" as pronouns. However if for instance the reference letter is going to be shown to an older small-business owner or be used to secure a position in a company full of Trump-loving rednecks stick with "he/his" or "she/her".


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Generally speaking, "their" is viewed as a more modern gender-neutral pronoun and a more elegant replacement for "his/her," so I would recommend going with "their." It also is inclusive of people who identify outside of the gender binary. However, both are correct, and either one would probably be fine, so no need to overthink it.


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