Sunday, March 4, 2007

By-the-by

So I was wondering, is this a wrong sentence: "You may earn extra credit by writing a report or by submitting a completed reading list." In other words, is the second "by" unnecessary?

Also, is it okay to put a comma between "report" and "or?" I notice some documents have this? (Or is it "do this?")

Anyway, thanks for your help!

2 comments:

Pat said...

I don't think the second by is necessary, but it is not wrong either. Think of the sentence in these ways:

You may earn extra credit either by writing a report or by submitting a completed reading list.

You may earn extra credit by either writing a report or submitting a completed reading list.


And no, it is not OK to insert the comma after or. If you insert it, you're separating one half of the clause from the other half.

I would say "have this"; if that sounds funny, you can say, "I notice some writers do this." :)

Pat said...

Sorry, I should have said it is not OK to insert the comma after report.