Overview

• What is a pronoun?: This handout from the George Mason University Writing Center introduces commonly used pronouns, offering useful tables and examples to introduce personal, interrogative, indefinite, demonstrative, and reflexive pronouns. It also addresses pronoun agreement and vagueness challenges.

What the style manuals say about the singular "they"

• American Psychological Association: Singular "They"
• Chicago/Turabian: Generic Singular "They": The Chicago Manual of Style is available for free to JMU students through the JMU Libraries (www.lib.jmu.edu). Here's how the 18th edition of the CMOS introduces the singular "they": 
  • Traditionally, a singular antecedent requires a singular pronoun. But even before the movement away from he, him, his, and himself as generic pronouns referring to a person of unspecified gender, people had long substituted the third-person-plural pronouns they, them, their, and themselves (or possibly themself) as generic singular forms—especially in speech and informal prose {somebody forgot their coat}. In recent years this usage has become accepted in more formal contexts, and Chicago now endorses it.
• Modern Languages Association: How do I use singular they?
• Associated Press: Pronouns: The AP Stylebook is available for free to JMU students through the JMU Libraries (www.lib.jmu.edu). Here's how the the AP Stylebook "pronouns" entry begins (as of 9/24/2025): 
  • Growing numbers of people, including some transgender, nonbinary, agender or gender-fluid people, use they/them/their as a gender-neutral singular personal pronoun. As much as possible, AP also uses they/them/their as a way of accurately describing and representing a person who uses those pronouns for themself.

More on Inclusive Pronouns

• Guidelines for Gender-inclusive Language in English: This page from the United Nations is part of a larger set of guidelines to help UN staff communicate in a gender-inclusive way within and across languages and cultures. 
• Frequently asked questions about gender pronouns: This page from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee LGBTQ+ Resource Center addresses frequently asked questions and offers a history (at the bottom of the page) and a how-to guide.

Academic Writing and Pronouns

• Should I use "I"?: This handout from the UNC Chapel Writing Center "is about determining when to use first person pronouns ('I.' 'we,' 'me,' 'us,' 'my,' and 'our') and personal experience in academic writing." 
• Avoid overusing expletives at the beginning of sentences: The first bullet point in this Purdue OWL page on concision addresses sentences that begin with expletive phrases like "It is" and "There are."
• Who, that, which, and whom: The first link, from GrammarBook.com, offers rules for thinking about the sliding scale between who, that, and which. The second resource, from the William and Mary Writing Resources Center, offers help in distinguishing between who and whom. For more help on who v. whom, there's also this fun clip from The Office, in which Pam (in the coral pink sweater) is correct and Toby (in the grayest blazer) is even more correct.