No one with a well-developed sense of fairness enjoys insulting people or seeing them insulted. Instead, we tend to sympathize with whoever has been insulted and to dislike the person who’s responsible. Insults can be direct, or they can take the form of assumptions — for instance, that a woman is less powerful than a man, that an old person must be forgetful, or that a member of a certain political group must be narrow-minded. Unless you are presenting definite evidence to the contrary, do not state or imply that any person or group is inferior or superior to others, and do not state or imply that particular members of a group have stereotypical traits.

Be especially sensitive in how you write about anything that touches on these human characteristics:

When you’re writing about groups of people or members of those groups, try to use the words they themselves prefer. For example, mental-health agencies and advocates tend to use expressions like people with schizophrenia and people with autism, rather than schizophrenics and autistics or people suffering from . . . A quick search on the Internet will help you find the right terms.

Do not use he to refer to an unspecific individual. Even if doing so is convenient, it is sexist and outdated.

A researcher who wants to do something about the malaria crisis will find that he needs to decide whether to work on vaccines, prevention, or treatment.

Sentences with this problem can be revised in any of four ways. You can change he to he or she:

A researcher who wants to do something about the malaria crisis will find that he or she needs to decide whether to work on vaccines, prevention, or treatment.

You can make the singular noun plural, so that the matching pronoun becomes the gender-neutral they:

Researchers who want to do something about the malaria crisis will find that they need to decide whether to work on vaccines, prevention, or treatment.

You can reword the sentence to get rid of the pronoun:

A researcher who wants to do something about the malaria crisis needs to decide whether to work on vaccines, prevention, or treatment.

Or you can alternate genders (as this handbook does). This option works well only if your document includes many references to individuals whose identities will be unknown to readers.

A researcher . . . he . . . A clinician . . . she . . .

Similarly, avoid using gender-specific words for generic roles. Instead, use a gender-neutral form such as the following: