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SC(OG) Beatrix Potter

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SC(OG) Beatrix Potter

by gocoder » Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:33 am
Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,* capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,

(B) In her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations

(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and


In this question, I have couple of doubts
I want to know whether them is rightly used [ I felt, them modifies book, so needs to be it if used]
Secondly, choice E " Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.
' seems to me like coordinated and capitalized are parallel. Similarly ' on her keen observation' and ' on her love...' are parallel
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by ceilidh.erickson » Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:43 pm
gocoder wrote: In this question, I have couple of doubts
I want to know whether them is rightly used [ I felt, them modifies book, so needs to be it if used]
Since "book" here is an adjective modifying "illustrations," it can't take its own pronoun. It's fine to use "them" to refer to illustrations.
Secondly, choice E " Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.
' seems to me like coordinated and capitalized are parallel. Similarly ' on her keen observation' and ' on her love...' are parallel
Yes, in this case "coordinated" and "capitalized" are parallel, conjoined with "and." That doesn't mean that they should or must be parallel, though. We only need to make sentence elements parallel if it makes logical sense to compare them.

In this sentence, the big picture is Beatrix Potter capitalized on stuff. Where or how did she do this? In her illustrations, which she coordinated with her narratives. "Capitalized" and "coordinated" aren't really on the same level of meaning.


(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,

A present participle like "coordinating" after a comma should modify to a complete clause before it. Here, though, there is no complete clause. There is just the subject "Beatrix Potter" followed by a modifying preposition "in her..." This usage of "coordinating" is incorrect.


(B) In her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

Once again, we have two modifiers stacked in a row, both of which seem to be modifying the subject. Also, when "them" is used in an opening modifier beginning with a present participle, it should refer to the SUBJECT that comes after it, not a noun in another modifier before it.


(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

Correct. The modifier "in her book illustrations" refers to the subject "Beatriz Potter," and "which she coordinated..." further modifies the illustrations.


(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations

This implies that Beatrix Potter herself, not her illustrations, was coordinated with the narratives. Nonsensical.


(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and

We should be able to remove any nonessential prepositional phrase and still maintain the intended meaning of the sentence. Here, if we said "Beatrix Potter... carefully coordinated them..." we would have no idea what "them" is. A pronoun should not be used as an object if the antecedent is within a modifying phrase.


The correct answer is C.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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by gocoder » Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:22 pm
"(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,

A present participle like "coordinating" after a comma should modify to a complete clause before it. Here, though, there is no complete clause. There is just the subject "Beatrix Potter" followed by a modifying preposition "in her..." This usage of "coordinating" is incorrect. "

Super!!
So, does it mean that non-essential VERB+ING modifiers can't modify Noun alones but modify noun/noun phrases when present in a clause ?
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by chickenwings » Wed Nov 02, 2016 1:09 am
Hi,Ron,

I have several questions about this problem. Please help me.
And it is my first time to post. If I wrote something improper please tell me. I will do better next time.

Here is the problem.

Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,* capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,

(B) In her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter

(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations

(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives


I first find the structure. It is [/quote]Beatrix Potter capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

Then I focus on that two modifiers. I think they separate subject and verb too far and also have a weird pronoun them.
And so remember Manhattan notes
says that modifier, subject with another modifier which is rephrased into part of sentence + verb+object. This is a good structure. So I scan through those options, look C first. I think it is ok then I pick C.

When I check the explanation in OG. I think I solved the problem in a wrong way because I ignored so many details.
So I look those options again and tried to find problems mentioned in OG explanation.

About A, OG said the participial phrase unclearly modifies the noun. I think perhaps it is saying that "coordinating" may modify "illustrations " or "Beatrix Potter ".
But OG doesn't give any details about how "coordinating" modify unclearly. So I am not sure if I am right or not.
Then I search on websites and became more confused. I saw someone even say that A wrong because present participle cannot modify a noun.

So I hope you could tell me how to do this problem and what is the steps.

Thank you so much.
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