he vs she vs he/she

[gipino9]

Hello to everybody,

I am new to this forum but it seems exactly what I was looking for.

May I start with asking you a question?

I am writing formal academic documents and I am often undecided which pronoun to use when I refer to a generic individual. For instances, take the sentence: "Individual A goes shopping. When SHE gets back home...". Here I used "she", sometimes I see the pronoun "he", sometimes even "he/she".

My guess is that "she" is the American politically correct way, "he/she" is the British one, although tedious. "he" is not formally correct.

Am I right? Which one would you suggest me to use?

Many thanks for your help!

gipino

[mykwyner]

He is the correct pronoun. Anything else is a non-standard variation.