His, her or their

Question

hi,I needed to write a report for each student according his / her / their level(s) of understandingfor the above sentence, should I use "his, her or their" ?also, level or levels?thanks

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

I needed to write a report for each student according to his or her level of understanding.

Clive

Philip · Answer

CliveHi,

I needed to write a report for each student according to his or her level of understanding.

Clive

Or, you could use the trick of making student plural: all students....their levels.

BillJ · Answer

uktoushi,

I needed to write a report for each student according his / her / their level(s) of understanding

for the above sentence, should I use "his, her or their" ?
also, level or levels?

thanks

Hi

It's all right to say:

'I needed to write a report for each student according their level of understanding'.

Although it may seem incorrect to use plural 'their' with the singular antecedent 'each', it has actually been done that way for many years. Of course, if you prefer to use 'his or her' that's up to you, but there's nothing gramatically wrong with 'their'.

Bill J

Uktous · Answer

hi, Bill,

should I say "their levels" rather than their level ?

BillJ · Answer

Hi uktous

I would probably say:

I needed to write a report for each student according to their (i.e. his or her) level of understanding'.

The trouble with this kind of contrived 'gender-neutral' sentence is that questions such as yours are virtually impossible to answer. For example, does 'level' refer to the understanding(s) of their (plural) or each student (singular)? And, on how many subjects are the students being reported?

'Level' is OK if you are referring to the level of understanding by each student in just one subject, which I think is the case here. But if each student was being assessed on several subjects, then 'level's would be better.

Hope that helps

Bill J

His, her or their

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