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For third-person, singular personal pronouns referring to any individual, use “he or she.” If this proves cumbersome, turn your antecedent noun (what the pronoun is a substitute for) into the plural form and then subsequently use “they.”

A student Students can explore his or her their intellectual interests at Cornell. He or she has They have great flexibility in choosing majors and minors.

Although the use of “they” has been evolving to refer to an individual, this practice is not widely used in formal writing. This said, try to accommodate strong personal preferences, especially in situations where an individual may not identify with either male or female pronouns, opting to use a different gender-neutral pronoun instead. Visit this webpage from Cornell’s Visit Cornell’s LGBT Resource Center's web page for a list of gender-neutral pronouns and guidelines for their use.

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