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This What?
Here’s a quick and easy trick to help you cultivate a more engaging writing style: avoid using the word “this” as a stand-alone subject. “This” can be used in two ways.
As a demonstrative pronoun: This is difficult.Or as an adjective: This project is difficult.
When used as a pronoun, “this” stands in the place of a noun. In a sentence like “This is difficult,” you can assume that, from the context, people know what “this” means. It’s a littleharder to follow, however, when you try to use the pronoun “this” to stand in for something more complex than a simple idea. Let’s look at an example:
We might improve the process by having the prep team notify AK when the first phase has been completed. This would allow AK to prepare to move the product to phase two. This could eliminate an entirestep of the HD process.
In the second and third sentences above, what do you figure “this” means? This what? In these sentences, “this” is being asked to do too much, and the result is vague, weak prose.Let’s look at a revision:
We might improve the process by having the prep team notify AK when the first phase been completed. AK could then prepare early to move the product to phase two. Setting up this kind of notificationsystem could eliminate an entire step of the HD process.
The revision is more specific and easier to follow. Is it possible for a reader to guess what the original version means? Probably. Is it better not to make the reader guess? Certainly.When you’re about to use “this” to stand in for a complex idea, take a moment to write out what you mean explicitly. If you have trouble doing so, it’s a sign that you were
“cheating” a little bit and expecting that little word to do the hard work you didn’t want to do. Taking the trouble to think through exactly what you mean will help guide your readerand make your point more clearly.
Gender-Neutral Language
The English language has gendered pronouns in the third person—that is, “he” and “she.” Once upon a time, the masculine pronouns “he,” “him,” “his,” and “himself” were consideredacceptable for use as gender-neutral pronouns in situations where the sex of the person was not known:
Everyone should lock his office door at the end of the day.The successful executive has confidence, and he can communicate effectively with everyone.A worker is only as good as his tools.Modern man no longer coddles himself during pregnancy. He continues to work often until days before he goes into labor and delivers.
That last example calls into question the neutrality of the pronoun, doesn’t it? Today, the masculine pronoun is no longer considered gender-neutral, which leaves professionalwriters with some choices to make when they want to be inclusive. No one has yet developed a widely accepted gender-neutral English pronoun, so we’re left with a few different
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