Be a Conscious Writer: Understanding Bias
Learn about bias, how to avoid bias, and how to add sensitivity into your writing practice.
When we are writing, it’s important for us to actively avoid biased language and write with sensitivity. Your audience will most likely be a diverse one that includes people of all genders, races, sexualities, classes, etc. Therefore, your writing should be inclusive of that audience.
What is bias?
Bias is the inclination or prejudices that one individual may have for or against someone or something. Bias can be
Avoid bias
Since bias is often unconscious, the only real way to avoid it is to learn what it looks like. Let's look at a few things we can do.
Stay away from generalizations
It is important to stay away from statements that assume facts about a group of people that may not be true. For example:
Biased → "Women do not do math."
This is a biased statement because this is not a fact that is true for all women.
An unbiased statement would be: