{"id":468,"date":"2015-05-08T22:34:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T22:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/introductiontocollegewriting\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=468"},"modified":"2015-07-02T00:15:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T00:15:21","slug":"point-of-view-in-academic-writing","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/chapter\/point-of-view-in-academic-writing\/","title":{"raw":"Point of View in Academic Writing","rendered":"Point of View in Academic Writing"},"content":{"raw":"<strong>Writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Person<\/strong>\r\nfrom the George Mason University School of Management\r\n\r\n<strong>Writing from a specific point of view alters the reader's perception of what you write.\u00a0 It can be confusing to the reader if you shift the point of view in your writing (meaning starting in the 3rd person, moving to the 2nd person, then switching back to 3rd).\u00a0 Look at this example of switching points of view:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIncreasing one's <strong><em>[3rd person] <\/em><\/strong>workload is taxing on both your <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>physical and mental health. Unless someone <strong><em>[3rd person] <\/em><\/strong>is in a physically-intensive profession, your <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>body is wasting away while you <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>are working.\u00a0 Additionally, diet <strong><em>[3rd person] <\/em><\/strong>also suffers as you <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>spend more time at work.\u00a0 No longer do you <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>have the time to prepare healthy meals at home or even worse, we <strong><em>[1st person] <\/em><\/strong>may not have time to eat at all.\r\n\r\n<strong>After reading this passage, a reader must wonder who is being addressed in the passage.\u00a0 Is it the reader?\u00a0 Is it a general audience?\u00a0 The shifting back and forth confuses the reader.\u00a0 Thus, it is important to maintain the same point of view in your writing.\u00a0 <\/strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>You should use particular points of view in particular situations.\u00a0 To help you with this, keep these three things in mind:<\/strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li>Use 1st person to indicate personal experience, evaluation, and\/or opinion.<\/li>\r\n\t<li>Use 2nd person to instruct or address the reader.<\/li>\r\n\t<li>Use 3rd person to generalize the experience or situation.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<strong>In academic writing, you should write in 3rd person whenever possible.\u00a0 This way, you avoid shifting points of view and confusing the reader.\r\n<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Here are some examples of the same passage written in the three different points of view.\u00a0 Read them to understand the difference in tone and purpose.\u00a0 <\/strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li><strong>1st person, indicating a personal experience\r\n<\/strong>I have found increasing my workload is taxing on both my physical and mental health. Unless I am in a physically-intensive profession, my body is wasting away while I work.\u00a0 Additionally, my diet has also suffered as I have spent more time at work.\u00a0 No longer do I have the time to prepare healthy meals at home or even worse; I sometimes do not have time to eat at all.<\/li>\r\n\t<li><strong>2nd person, instructing the reader\r\n<\/strong>Increasing your workload is taxing on both your physical and mental health. Unless you are in a physically-intensive profession, your body is wasting away while you are working.\u00a0 Additionally, your diet also suffers as you spend more time at work.\u00a0 No longer [do you] have the time to prepare healthy meals at home or even worse, you may not have time to eat at all.<\/li>\r\n\t<li><strong><strong>3rd person, addressing a general situation\r\n<\/strong><\/strong>Increasing workloads tax both physical and mental health.\u00a0 Unless a person is in a physically-intensive profession, a body will waste away with inactivity.\u00a0 Additionally, diet suffers as more time is spent at work as people do not have the time to prepare healthy meals or, even worse, may not have time to eat at all.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<strong>Also note the grammatical changes in subjects (\"I\" vs. \"increasing\" vs. \"increasing workloads\"; number (singular vs. plural); and verb tenses (perfect forms in 1st person \"have found\"; simple <em>be <\/em>forms in 2nd person \"is\" and \"are\"; and simple active forms \"tax\" in 3rd person).<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWriting in the third person creates a more authoritative voice, which is something you want in expository writing.\u00a0 Use 3rd person point of view as the standard although it is possible to use first person when using personal experience as part of the writing.\u00a0 It is not conventional to use second person \"you\" and sentences and ideas that contain \"you\" should be rewritten from a different point of view.\r\n\r\n<strong>Avoiding Metadiscourse or When Not to Use \"I\"<\/strong>\r\n\r\nMetadiscourse is when you are self-referential in your writing.\u00a0\u00a0Use of\u00a0phrases like \"I believe\" or \"I am writing about\" or \"In the paragraph before where I said\" are all referring back to yourself as writer or the act of writing the essay.\u00a0 These bits of metadiscourse tend to be distracting, pulling the reader's\u00a0attention from the ideas being discussed to focus instead on the writer and his or her process of writing.\u00a0 Though it is true that every piece of writing is authored and perhaps avoiding any\u00a0reference to the writer is merely presents an illusion of objectivity, it is nevertheless\u00a0conventional to avoid such discourse markers.\u00a0 Ideas expressed in your essays are implicitly yours, so you do no need to say \"I believe\", \"I think\", or \"In my opinion.\"\u00a0 These are phrases we like\u00a0to throw into our speech and writing to qualify our ideas, so we don't sound too forceful or authoritative.\u00a0 However, in your academic writing, you are the expert and you should sound like one.\u00a0 Check out the two examples below to see what a difference\u00a0metadiscourse makes:\r\n\r\n<strong>With Metadiscourse Markers<\/strong>\r\nA. There are many definitions of the word grassroot and <em>I tried<\/em> to find where the root of the word started.\u00a0 <em>I found<\/em> it started in the United States in 1912 by\u00a0the Progressive Party.\u00a0\u00a0One other definition that <em>I discovered on the Internet<\/em> describes grassroots\u00a0as\u00a0designing political processes where the decision making authority is shifted to the organization's lowest levels rather than being isolated at the top.\u00a0 Grassroots movements are important because <em>I think<\/em> that democratic power is best exercised when it is vested in the local community rather than in isolated individuals.\r\n\r\n<strong>Without Metadiscourse Markers<\/strong>\r\nB.\u00a0There are many definitions of the word grassroot and where the root of the word started.\u00a0 It started in the United States in 1912 by\u00a0the Progressive Party.\u00a0\u00a0One other definition on the Internet describes grassroots\u00a0as\u00a0designing political processes where the decision making authority is shifted to the organization's lowest levels rather than being isolated at the top.\u00a0 Grassroots movements are important because democratic power is best exercised when it is vested in the local community rather than in isolated individuals.\r\n\r\nAs you can see, version B focuses the reader on the subject at hand rather than on the experience of writing it.\u00a0 The elimination of metadiscourse such as \"I tried to find\" or \"I found\" or \"I discovered\/think\" makes the writing more smooth and factual rather than based on opinion, a factor that leads to greater credibility as a writer.\r\n\r\n<strong>Avoiding and Replacing Second Person \"You\"<\/strong>\r\n\r\nRead the following paragraph and rewrite it in order to eliminate the use of 2nd person \u201cyou.\u201d You may use choose to substitute another personal pronoun, an indefinite pronoun, or simply address the general situation.\u00a0 Make sure that your indefinite pronouns agree with their antecedents.\r\n\r\n<em>Another example of commitment outside of marriage is one that is made when you make a financial decision to obligate yourself to a signed contract.\u00a0 An example of this would be purchasing a new car.\u00a0 Once you have decided to on the car you want, you have to come to an agreement on the terms.\u00a0 You then sign a contract that you are expected to fulfill.\u00a0 If you do not adhere to this formal commitment, you will have to face getting the car repossessed by the company whom you purchased the car from.<\/em>\r\n\r\nHow did you do it?\r\n\r\nSome of you probably decided to use another personal noun like \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe\u201d, which is a 3rd person point of view. For example, sentence one would say, \u201c<em>Another example of commitment outside of marriage is one that is made when he or she makes a financial obligation.\u201d <\/em>Some of you might have substituted a more specific word like \u201ca person\u201d or \u201c<em>people\u201d<\/em> or \u201c<em>a couple,\u201d<\/em> which is the best thing to do since it now specifies who you really mean when you use the generic \u201cyou.\u201d\r\n\r\nIf you used another personal pronoun, like he or she, that is fine, but you have to clarify who is the \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe\u201d? Pronouns are words that take the place of a person or thing. Pronouns must take an antecedent (the person or thing it stands for) and sometimes you don\u2019t want to specify someone in particular. That\u2019s usually why we end up using the word \u201cyou\u201d because we want to imply a general person somewhere out there rather than Stan or Lucy or someone specific. So, another solution is to use an indefinite pronoun.\r\n\r\n<strong>Indefinite Pronouns<\/strong>\r\n<table>\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Indefinite pronouns refer to nonspecific persons or things.\u00a0 Most indefinite pronouns are singular; however, a few are plural.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>\n\n<strong>Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in number (singular versus plural)<\/strong>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Incorrect: <\/strong>Everyone (singular) at the meeting agreed to finish their (plural) project.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Correct: <\/strong>Everyone (singular) at the meeting agreed to finish his or her (singular) project.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Incorrect: <\/strong>Please tell the others (plural) to complete his or her (singular) project.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Correct: <\/strong>Please tell the others (plural) to complete their (plural) projects.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<table>\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Indefinite Pronouns<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Singular<\/td>\r\n<td>Plural<\/td>\r\n<td>Singular or Plural<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>anybody<\/td>\r\n<td>neither<\/td>\r\n<td>both<\/td>\r\n<td>all<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Anyone<\/td>\r\n<td>nobody<\/td>\r\n<td>few<\/td>\r\n<td>any<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>anything<\/td>\r\n<td>no one<\/td>\r\n<td>many<\/td>\r\n<td>enough<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>each<\/td>\r\n<td>one<\/td>\r\n<td>others<\/td>\r\n<td>more<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>Either<\/td>\r\n<td>somebody<\/td>\r\n<td>several<\/td>\r\n<td>most<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>everybody<\/td>\r\n<td>someone<\/td>\r\n<td><\/td>\r\n<td>none<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>everyone<\/td>\r\n<td>something<\/td>\r\n<td><\/td>\r\n<td>some<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\nFor more practice, go to: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.towson.edu\/ows\/modulepaa.htm\">http:\/\/www.towson.edu\/ows\/modulepaa.htm<\/a>\r\n\r\nSo your paragraph could do something like this:\r\n\r\n<em>Another example of commitment outside of marriage is one that is made when someone makes a financial decision to obligate him or herself to a signed contract.\u00a0 An example of this would be purchasing a new car.\u00a0 Once a person have decided on the car he or she wants, he or she has to come to an agreement on the terms.<\/em>\r\n\r\nNow you might find this awkward because you have to keep saying \u201che or she\u201d and \u201chim and her\u201d which can get unwieldy. Instead, you can make the subject or indefinite pronoun plural:\r\n\r\n<em>\u00a0 The couple then sign a contract that they are expected to fulfill.\u00a0 If they do not adhere to this formal commitment, they will have to face getting the car repossessed by the company whom they purchased the car from.<\/em>\r\n\r\nDon\u2019t forget that when you change the subject and it changes from singular to plural or vice versa, then the verb also needs to change form!\r\n<table>\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Incorrect: <\/strong>One then sign a contract that he or she are expected to fulfill.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Correct: <\/strong>One then signs a contract that he or she is expected to fulfill<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nNeed more practice? Check out the links provided, which contain a review of not only indefinite pronouns but pronouns in general as well as many helpful exercises.","rendered":"<p><strong>Writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Person<\/strong><br \/>\nfrom the George Mason University School of Management<\/p>\n<p><strong>Writing from a specific point of view alters the reader&#8217;s perception of what you write.\u00a0 It can be confusing to the reader if you shift the point of view in your writing (meaning starting in the 3rd person, moving to the 2nd person, then switching back to 3rd).\u00a0 Look at this example of switching points of view:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Increasing one&#8217;s <strong><em>[3rd person] <\/em><\/strong>workload is taxing on both your <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>physical and mental health. Unless someone <strong><em>[3rd person] <\/em><\/strong>is in a physically-intensive profession, your <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>body is wasting away while you <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>are working.\u00a0 Additionally, diet <strong><em>[3rd person] <\/em><\/strong>also suffers as you <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>spend more time at work.\u00a0 No longer do you <strong><em>[2nd person] <\/em><\/strong>have the time to prepare healthy meals at home or even worse, we <strong><em>[1st person] <\/em><\/strong>may not have time to eat at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>After reading this passage, a reader must wonder who is being addressed in the passage.\u00a0 Is it the reader?\u00a0 Is it a general audience?\u00a0 The shifting back and forth confuses the reader.\u00a0 Thus, it is important to maintain the same point of view in your writing.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>You should use particular points of view in particular situations.\u00a0 To help you with this, keep these three things in mind:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use 1st person to indicate personal experience, evaluation, and\/or opinion.<\/li>\n<li>Use 2nd person to instruct or address the reader.<\/li>\n<li>Use 3rd person to generalize the experience or situation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In academic writing, you should write in 3rd person whenever possible.\u00a0 This way, you avoid shifting points of view and confusing the reader.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Here are some examples of the same passage written in the three different points of view.\u00a0 Read them to understand the difference in tone and purpose.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>1st person, indicating a personal experience<br \/>\n<\/strong>I have found increasing my workload is taxing on both my physical and mental health. Unless I am in a physically-intensive profession, my body is wasting away while I work.\u00a0 Additionally, my diet has also suffered as I have spent more time at work.\u00a0 No longer do I have the time to prepare healthy meals at home or even worse; I sometimes do not have time to eat at all.<\/li>\n<li><strong>2nd person, instructing the reader<br \/>\n<\/strong>Increasing your workload is taxing on both your physical and mental health. Unless you are in a physically-intensive profession, your body is wasting away while you are working.\u00a0 Additionally, your diet also suffers as you spend more time at work.\u00a0 No longer [do you] have the time to prepare healthy meals at home or even worse, you may not have time to eat at all.<\/li>\n<li><strong><strong>3rd person, addressing a general situation<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/strong>Increasing workloads tax both physical and mental health.\u00a0 Unless a person is in a physically-intensive profession, a body will waste away with inactivity.\u00a0 Additionally, diet suffers as more time is spent at work as people do not have the time to prepare healthy meals or, even worse, may not have time to eat at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Also note the grammatical changes in subjects (&#8220;I&#8221; vs. &#8220;increasing&#8221; vs. &#8220;increasing workloads&#8221;; number (singular vs. plural); and verb tenses (perfect forms in 1st person &#8220;have found&#8221;; simple <em>be <\/em>forms in 2nd person &#8220;is&#8221; and &#8220;are&#8221;; and simple active forms &#8220;tax&#8221; in 3rd person).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Writing in the third person creates a more authoritative voice, which is something you want in expository writing.\u00a0 Use 3rd person point of view as the standard although it is possible to use first person when using personal experience as part of the writing.\u00a0 It is not conventional to use second person &#8220;you&#8221; and sentences and ideas that contain &#8220;you&#8221; should be rewritten from a different point of view.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Avoiding Metadiscourse or When Not to Use &#8220;I&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Metadiscourse is when you are self-referential in your writing.\u00a0\u00a0Use of\u00a0phrases like &#8220;I believe&#8221; or &#8220;I am writing about&#8221; or &#8220;In the paragraph before where I said&#8221; are all referring back to yourself as writer or the act of writing the essay.\u00a0 These bits of metadiscourse tend to be distracting, pulling the reader&#8217;s\u00a0attention from the ideas being discussed to focus instead on the writer and his or her process of writing.\u00a0 Though it is true that every piece of writing is authored and perhaps avoiding any\u00a0reference to the writer is merely presents an illusion of objectivity, it is nevertheless\u00a0conventional to avoid such discourse markers.\u00a0 Ideas expressed in your essays are implicitly yours, so you do no need to say &#8220;I believe&#8221;, &#8220;I think&#8221;, or &#8220;In my opinion.&#8221;\u00a0 These are phrases we like\u00a0to throw into our speech and writing to qualify our ideas, so we don&#8217;t sound too forceful or authoritative.\u00a0 However, in your academic writing, you are the expert and you should sound like one.\u00a0 Check out the two examples below to see what a difference\u00a0metadiscourse makes:<\/p>\n<p><strong>With Metadiscourse Markers<\/strong><br \/>\nA. There are many definitions of the word grassroot and <em>I tried<\/em> to find where the root of the word started.\u00a0 <em>I found<\/em> it started in the United States in 1912 by\u00a0the Progressive Party.\u00a0\u00a0One other definition that <em>I discovered on the Internet<\/em> describes grassroots\u00a0as\u00a0designing political processes where the decision making authority is shifted to the organization&#8217;s lowest levels rather than being isolated at the top.\u00a0 Grassroots movements are important because <em>I think<\/em> that democratic power is best exercised when it is vested in the local community rather than in isolated individuals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Without Metadiscourse Markers<\/strong><br \/>\nB.\u00a0There are many definitions of the word grassroot and where the root of the word started.\u00a0 It started in the United States in 1912 by\u00a0the Progressive Party.\u00a0\u00a0One other definition on the Internet describes grassroots\u00a0as\u00a0designing political processes where the decision making authority is shifted to the organization&#8217;s lowest levels rather than being isolated at the top.\u00a0 Grassroots movements are important because democratic power is best exercised when it is vested in the local community rather than in isolated individuals.<\/p>\n<p>As you can see, version B focuses the reader on the subject at hand rather than on the experience of writing it.\u00a0 The elimination of metadiscourse such as &#8220;I tried to find&#8221; or &#8220;I found&#8221; or &#8220;I discovered\/think&#8221; makes the writing more smooth and factual rather than based on opinion, a factor that leads to greater credibility as a writer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Avoiding and Replacing Second Person &#8220;You&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Read the following paragraph and rewrite it in order to eliminate the use of 2nd person \u201cyou.\u201d You may use choose to substitute another personal pronoun, an indefinite pronoun, or simply address the general situation.\u00a0 Make sure that your indefinite pronouns agree with their antecedents.<\/p>\n<p><em>Another example of commitment outside of marriage is one that is made when you make a financial decision to obligate yourself to a signed contract.\u00a0 An example of this would be purchasing a new car.\u00a0 Once you have decided to on the car you want, you have to come to an agreement on the terms.\u00a0 You then sign a contract that you are expected to fulfill.\u00a0 If you do not adhere to this formal commitment, you will have to face getting the car repossessed by the company whom you purchased the car from.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>How did you do it?<\/p>\n<p>Some of you probably decided to use another personal noun like \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe\u201d, which is a 3rd person point of view. For example, sentence one would say, \u201c<em>Another example of commitment outside of marriage is one that is made when he or she makes a financial obligation.\u201d <\/em>Some of you might have substituted a more specific word like \u201ca person\u201d or \u201c<em>people\u201d<\/em> or \u201c<em>a couple,\u201d<\/em> which is the best thing to do since it now specifies who you really mean when you use the generic \u201cyou.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you used another personal pronoun, like he or she, that is fine, but you have to clarify who is the \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe\u201d? Pronouns are words that take the place of a person or thing. Pronouns must take an antecedent (the person or thing it stands for) and sometimes you don\u2019t want to specify someone in particular. That\u2019s usually why we end up using the word \u201cyou\u201d because we want to imply a general person somewhere out there rather than Stan or Lucy or someone specific. So, another solution is to use an indefinite pronoun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Indefinite Pronouns<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Indefinite pronouns refer to nonspecific persons or things.\u00a0 Most indefinite pronouns are singular; however, a few are plural.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><strong>Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in number (singular versus plural)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Incorrect: <\/strong>Everyone (singular) at the meeting agreed to finish their (plural) project.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Correct: <\/strong>Everyone (singular) at the meeting agreed to finish his or her (singular) project.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Incorrect: <\/strong>Please tell the others (plural) to complete his or her (singular) project.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Correct: <\/strong>Please tell the others (plural) to complete their (plural) projects.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: auto;\">\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Indefinite Pronouns<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Singular<\/td>\n<td>Plural<\/td>\n<td>Singular or Plural<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>anybody<\/td>\n<td>neither<\/td>\n<td>both<\/td>\n<td>all<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Anyone<\/td>\n<td>nobody<\/td>\n<td>few<\/td>\n<td>any<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>anything<\/td>\n<td>no one<\/td>\n<td>many<\/td>\n<td>enough<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>each<\/td>\n<td>one<\/td>\n<td>others<\/td>\n<td>more<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Either<\/td>\n<td>somebody<\/td>\n<td>several<\/td>\n<td>most<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>everybody<\/td>\n<td>someone<\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>none<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>everyone<\/td>\n<td>something<\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td>some<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>For more practice, go to: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.towson.edu\/ows\/modulepaa.htm\">http:\/\/www.towson.edu\/ows\/modulepaa.htm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So your paragraph could do something like this:<\/p>\n<p><em>Another example of commitment outside of marriage is one that is made when someone makes a financial decision to obligate him or herself to a signed contract.\u00a0 An example of this would be purchasing a new car.\u00a0 Once a person have decided on the car he or she wants, he or she has to come to an agreement on the terms.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now you might find this awkward because you have to keep saying \u201che or she\u201d and \u201chim and her\u201d which can get unwieldy. Instead, you can make the subject or indefinite pronoun plural:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0 The couple then sign a contract that they are expected to fulfill.\u00a0 If they do not adhere to this formal commitment, they will have to face getting the car repossessed by the company whom they purchased the car from.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t forget that when you change the subject and it changes from singular to plural or vice versa, then the verb also needs to change form!<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Incorrect: <\/strong>One then sign a contract that he or she are expected to fulfill.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Correct: <\/strong>One then signs a contract that he or she is expected to fulfill<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Need more practice? Check out the links provided, which contain a review of not only indefinite pronouns but pronouns in general as well as many helpful exercises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":907,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-468","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":22,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/907"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/468\/revisions\/473"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/22"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/468\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/everettcc-introductiontocollegewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}