Sentence Correction

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down our choices to the right one! To begin, let's take a quick look at the options and highlight any major differences in orange:

Shunned by literary critics for decades as something fit only for youthful consumption, the graphic novel is now gaining recognition both as an art form and as a legitimate literary genre.

A) the graphic novel is now gaining recognition both as an art form and
B) the art form of the graphic novel is now gaining recognition, as is its reality
C) the graphic novel, gaining recognition not only as an art form but also
D) graphic novels are gaining recognition both as a form of artistic work and
E) recognition of the graphic novel is gaining, both as an art form and

After a quick scan over the options, we have two main areas we can focus on:

1. the graphic novel / the art form of the graphic novel / graphic novels / recognition of the graphic novel (Modifiers)
2. both as an art form and / as is its reality / not only as an art form but also / both as a form of artistic work and (Idioms/Parallelism)

Let's start with #1 on our list: modifiers! If we look closely at the original sentence, we can clearly spot that there is a modifier in the beginning:

Shunned by literary critics for decades as something fit only for youthful consumption, the graphic novel is now gaining recognition both as an art form and as a legitimate literary genre.

WHAT was shunned by literary critics? Graphic novels! We need to make sure that the first thing that follows the modifier is the thing it's referring to, or as we know it - the antecedent. Let's see how each option pans out:

A) the graphic novel is now gaining recognition both as an art form and
B) the art form of the graphic novel is now gaining recognition, as is its reality
C) the graphic novel, gaining recognition not only as an art form but also
D) graphic novels are gaining recognition both as a form of artistic work and
E) recognition of the graphic novel is gaining, both as an art form and

We can eliminate options B & E because the antecedents don't match up with the modifier in a logical way.

Next, let's tackle #2 on our list: idioms & parallelism. We can tell from the original sentence that there are two ways that graphic novels are gaining recognition: as an art form & as a legitimate literary genre. This means we need to check that both items are written using parallel structure! To make problems easier to spot, we'll add in the end of the sentence. Here we go:

A) the graphic novel is now gaining recognition both as an art form and as a legitimate literary genre.
C) the graphic novel, gaining recognition not only as an art form but also as a legitimate literary genre.
D) graphic novels are gaining recognition both as a form of artistic work and as a legitimate literary genre.

We can eliminate option D because "a form of artistic work" and "a legitimate literary genre" aren't written using parallel wording. This leaves us with 2 options, and very little difference between them. Our final option is to add in the underlined portion to the original sentence and see if we can spot any other problems:

A) Shunned by literary critics for decades as something fit only for youthful consumption, the graphic novel is now gaining recognition both as an art form and as a legitimate literary genre.

This is CORRECT! The antecedent and modifier make sense, it uses parallel structure, and there is a clear subject and verb!

C) Shunned by literary critics for decades as something fit only for youthful consumption, the graphic novel, gaining recognition not only as an art form but also as a legitimate literary genre.

This is INCORRECT because it's actually a very long sentence fragment! We have a subject (the graphic novel) but NO VERB!

There you have it - option A was the correct choice all along! By focusing on the key differences, we can narrow down our choices to get to the right one quickly!


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