viidyasagar wrote:Want to know whether the following sentence needs correction or not

Source: Primary objective in the CR bible


Determine whether a stimulus contains an argument or if it is just a set of factual statements


Is the "if" correct here??? can a statement have 2 "whethers"

How about
"Determine whether a stimulus contains an argument or is it just a set of factual statements"

SC experts, kindly offer help

Tx

I am not expert, but i'll give it a shot. firstly the part before and after "or" should have similar construction. Hence there is no need to use whether again

"Determine whether a stimulus contains an argument or if it is just a set of factual statements"

"Determine whether X or Y, we should use if in "Y part of the sentence" because if here represents uncertainty or conditionality.

'If' need not be used. the term 'Whether' is sufficient to employ the choices.
Moreover 'If' when used as a conditional also needs the 'then' clause. If X then Y. however in our sentence we do not have any clause that supports the 'If' clause.

Whether X or Y, here X and Y need to be parallel.
I would rewrite the sentence this way:
Determine whether a stimulus contains an argument or just a set of factual statements

Here the parallelism occurs after 'contains'. Rewritten it would read,

Determine whether a stimulus contains an argument
OR
Determine whether a stimulus contains just a set of factual statements.