How Will Your Reader Respond to This Tone?

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Why is it important to use language that is sensitive to the target audience?
When writers use language that implies a biased or judgmental attitude, the audience may take offense and be less apt to listen to the writer’s argument. Language that is insensitive to gender, ethnicity, or disability should be avoided. Just as writers hope their audience will be willing to respect their point of view, they need to respect the diversity of a broad base of readers. Language that is inclusive and fair may contribute to the credibility of the writer and uphold the audience’s sense of dignity and self-worth.

What revisions will help to promote sensitive, fair language?

Use gender-inclusive language:

he or she instead of he
humankind instead of mankind
garbage collector instead of garbage man
server instead of waitress

Use correct or accepted racial and ethnic terms:

African American instead of colored or Negro
Asian instead of Oriental
American Indian or Native American instead of Indian
Native Alaskan or Inuit instead of Eskimo
Hispanic instead of Spanish
Latino instead of Mexican

Use language that respects people for who they are or recognizes a specific ailment:

persons with disabilities instead of handicapped, challenged, disabled, or retarded
visually impaired instead of blind
persons with hearing loss instead of deaf individuals
mentally ill instead of crazy, moron, or loony
those with arthritis instead of arthritis sufferers
people with diabetes instead of diabetes patients 

The dilemma of gendered language in English

What to do about gender with an unspecified subject? In the past, the consensus was to always use “he” and readers were supposed to understand that the subject might be female. However, this is no longer accepted. The culture of formal academic writing hasn’t settled on a widely supported solution yet, which creates a pervasive problem for the student writer.

Informally, using “they/their” as the neutral singular is becoming a common practice. For example, if a Facebook friend hasn’t specified a gender, Facebook used to exhort you to “write on their timeline” for “their birthday.” I hear this more and more in spoken language as well. For example, most people who hear this sentence spoken wouldn’t note a glaring problem: “A doctor who makes a mistake is often too scared to admit their slip-up.” However, in an academic paper, that sentence would be considered a pronoun-antecedent error because “doctor” is singular and “their” is still considered plural. Most of your professors still don’t accept they/their as a gender-neutral singular possessive. Hopefully in coming years, academic writing will come to accept this perfectly reasonable solution to the gendered language problem, but we’re not there yet.

So what to do? Here are three possible solutions.

Choose plurals when possible. For example, “Doctors who make mistakes are often too scared to admit their slip-ups.”

Write “he or she” or “his or her” if it’s not too repetitive. You don’t want to have more than two or three such “ors” in a paragraph, but a couple wouldn’t be tedious for the reader. For example, one might write, “A doctor who makes a mistake is often too scared to admit his or her slip-up. He or she might be forbidden from doing so by hospital attorneys.”

Consider whether a real-life example is better than a hypothetical subject. Long passages about hypothetical people and situations often lack argumentative force. If you’re writing a paper about medical errors, you might do better to replace hypothetical claims like the above example with real-life examples of physicians who have made mistakes but were reluctant or forbidden to acknowledge them. Better yet, discuss the results of studies of medical errors and their outcomes. In addition to solving the gendered language problem, real examples are more persuasive.

Remember, it’s about precision and respect. Whatever you do, don’t just write “he” for doctors, attorneys, and construction workers and “she” for nurses, social workers, and flight attendants. You also shouldn’t just write one gender for everything. Showing respect through precise language about gender makes you seem much more credible.

Inflammatory Language

One of the quickest ways you can turn a reader off to your work is by using inappropriate inflammatory language. Take the following passage:

My neighbor, Bob, is a political activist who believes that building a new train station will help stimulate our town’s economy. What a bleeding heart moron! Everybody knows this won’t work. Bob wants to run our town into the ground with his stupid plan.

As you can see, this passage’s writer was quite rude to poor Bob. Instead of spending time critiquing Bob’s argument, the author completely dismisses it without presenting any counter arguments or citing any facts or experts in the field. It’s unlikely that somebody who supports building this new train station will be persuaded by this passage. Compare that to this paragraph:

My neighbor, Bob, is a political activist who believes that building a new train station will help stimulate our town’s economy. I respectfully disagree. According to a recent memo from the mayor’s office, this station will cost about ten million dollars to build. Even if Bob is correct in stating that the train station will bring in tens of thousands of dollars annually, we would not see a return on investment for about one hundred years.

Here, the writer treats Bob and his cause with respect. Instead of relying on insults, the writer cites sources and calmly lays out reasons why building a new train station may be a poor idea. A reader is much more likely to walk away from reading this passage persuaded by the author’s message.

Overall, when you are writing, you can avoid inflammatory language by keeping the following in mind:

•    Be respectful. Avoid all personal insults.
•    Cite expert sources whenever you’re writing about any contentious issues.
•    Even if you strongly disagree with something or somebody, don’t presume that they mean ill towards you.