BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

Including VS Including the following

This topic has expert replies
Post new topic Locked
Previous Topic Next Topic
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 167
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:04 pm
Thanked: 4 times

Including VS Including the following

by subgeeth » Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:09 am
Heightened land erosion, caused by human activity, has many negative effects including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
A) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
B) including: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and harmful chemicals entering the ocean's environment.
C) including: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
D) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and harmful chemicals entering the ocean's environment.
E) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, certain fish populations rising, certain fish populations falling, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment

The correct answer here is A

But my question is why not B ?
when we mention a list the word including the following is essential? can any body give me an example to understand this question
Top
Source: — Sentence Correction |
User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 407
Joined: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:20 am
Location: India
Thanked: 20 times
Followed by:1 members

by hrishi19884 » Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:40 am
Hey brother....nice to see you bringing this up.

The reason is :

When we want to mention only 1 or 2 things "including" is enough, but if there is a list of things we should always prefer "including the following" over "including".

Example : I am going to a party today with my friends, including Sam and Peter. (we use AND as connector here)

I am going to a party today with my friends, including the following people : Sam, Peter, Harry, Tim, Jason, Henry and Nick.

In your example it is a list of 4 things : So should prefer the above.

Also, one most important thing to why "including the following" is used here.

When we talk about a certain class or certain similar things - we can still use "including" sometimes though not prefered

Take the above example:

I am going to a party today with my friends, including the following people : Sam, Peter, Harry, Tim, Jason, Henry and Nick.

I can sometimes use "including" here if I have no option of "including the following" given because everyone is human being and are of a particular similar category humans.

But I cannot use " including" in the below.

Ozone depletion can cause skin cancer including dizziness, skin allergy, heavy rainfall, low temperature and high pressure.

Here, each belongs to different category except "dizziness and skin allergy" - we can relate them as a type of illness.
But other things like rainfall, temp, pressure are all in different category. We should use "including the following" here.

Same is the case in your example.

Though I am not a grammar expert, I think this could be the main reason for using "including the following".

Thanks again!
Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"
Top
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 167
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:04 pm
Thanked: 4 times

by subgeeth » Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:13 am
Thanks for providing me some examples to understand the difference :-)
Top
Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 8:41 am
Thanked: 3 times

by sunil_snath » Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:47 am
Hi Guys,

there is also 1 more point that I can think of as to why A is correct:

From Man SC Guide:

What comes before the colon must be able to stand alone as a sentence. What comes after the colon does not have to be able to stand alone.

For this reason when we compare A & B, in B, the sentence before the colon cannot stand alone. It sounds incomplete to me.

thanks,
Top
User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 407
Joined: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:20 am
Location: India
Thanked: 20 times
Followed by:1 members

by hrishi19884 » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:02 am
sunil_snath wrote:Hi Guys,

there is also 1 more point that I can think of as to why A is correct:

From Man SC Guide:

What comes before the colon must be able to stand alone as a sentence. What comes after the colon does not have to be able to stand alone.

For this reason when we compare A & B, in B, the sentence before the colon cannot stand alone. It sounds incomplete to me.

thanks,
Do you mean to say that "Heightened land erosion, caused by human activity, has many negative effects including the following" is a complete sentence?

and "Heightened land erosion, caused by human activity, has many negative effects including" is not a sentence.

I think both the above one cannot stand as a sentence alone. We need to have everything after the colon also to make it a complete sentence.

Can you please share the complete explanation from Manhattan SC guide for this query?( in case you have it)

Thanks for bringing that point.
Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"
Top
Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 8:41 am
Thanked: 3 times

by sunil_snath » Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:41 pm
Sure Hrishi,
From Man SC

Wrong: I love listening to: classical, rock, rap, and pop music.
Right : I love listening to many kinds of music: classical, rock, rap and pop.

In the corrected version, the words preceding the colon can stand alone as a sentence. Moreover the words following the colon give further explanation of the many kinds of music mentioned. You can insert namely or that is after the colon, and the result would make sense.
Hrishi, after reading your post I got confused. But then, the last line in the previous paragraph is interesting because if we apply it to our question in hand, it makes perfect sense.

Heightened land erosion, caused by human activity, has many negative effects including, namely X Y & Z (Doesnt make sense)

Heightened land erosion, caused by human activity, has many negative effects including the following, namely X Y & Z (makes sense)


Maybe I am blinded by this :)? But, does this make sense to you?
Top
User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 407
Joined: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:20 am
Location: India
Thanked: 20 times
Followed by:1 members

by hrishi19884 » Thu Feb 25, 2010 11:38 pm
Of course that does makes sense.

One more thought came to my mind

I think "colon" indicates that there is a list coming in, so we can't use "including :" but "including the following :"
Here, we can use "including" alone without a colon.


Also the MAN SC question has brought another thing into picture .

1)I love listening to many kinds of music including classical, rock, rap and pop. (No need of colon here)

2)I love listening to many kinds of music including the following : classical, rock, rap and pop. ("following" should be used, if we want to use "including" with a colon)

3)I love listening to many kinds of music: classical, rock, rap and pop. (otherwise to avoid "following" we should use colon without "including")

Do you agree?
Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"
Top
Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
Posts: 79
Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:41 am

by Rajat Khandelwal » Fri Feb 26, 2010 8:15 am
Including is wrong because it needs object after the present participle phrase to complete the participle phrase to modify the noun.

Option E is wrong.

Between option A and D .....Option A seems to be correct as a result as parallel structure.
Top
Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
Posts: 79
Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:41 am

by Rajat Khandelwal » Fri Feb 26, 2010 8:16 am
......And use of colon to express the summary of the preceding clause....
Top
Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 8:41 am
Thanked: 3 times

by sunil_snath » Fri Feb 26, 2010 11:27 am
hrishi19884 wrote:Of course that does makes sense.

One more thought came to my mind

I think "colon" indicates that there is a list coming in, so we can't use "including :" but "including the following :"
Here, we can use "including" alone without a colon.


Also the MAN SC question has brought another thing into picture .

1)I love listening to many kinds of music including classical, rock, rap and pop. (No need of colon here)

2)I love listening to many kinds of music including the following : classical, rock, rap and pop. ("following" should be used, if we want to use "including" with a colon)

3)I love listening to many kinds of music: classical, rock, rap and pop. (otherwise to avoid "following" we should use colon without "including")

Do you agree?

Yeah Hrishi, these sentences and your reasoning look ok to me... Good luck
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 774
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:32 am
Thanked: 46 times
Followed by:14 members

by aditya8062 » Wed Feb 20, 2013 9:43 am
Heightened land erosion, caused by human activity, has many negative effects including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
A) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
B) including: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and harmful chemicals entering the ocean's environment.
C) including: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
D) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and harmful chemicals entering the ocean's environment.
E) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, certain fish populations rising, certain fish populations falling, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.

i am posting this question .the OA is A
i have the following doubt in this sc ,though i got it right but what perplexes me is the one rule of colon that is mentioned in manhattan sc book .it states that when we use colon then we need to make sure that the sentence before colon should be able to stand alone as a sentence .now in option A i feel that this rule is flouted
instructors plz help me with this .
thanks and regards
Top
User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 451
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:58 am
Location: New York City
Thanked: 188 times
Followed by:120 members
GMAT Score:770

by Tommy Wallach » Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:15 pm
Hey Aditya,

This is definitely a confusing rule, and I think we could stand to describe it slightly better in the book. The part before the colon does need to be an independent clause. However, you're right in thinking that this would not be a complete logical sentence:

X has many negative effects including the following.

However, technically an independent clause is a grammatical entity, not a logical entity. For example:

A dependent clause cannot stand alone as a sentence; instead, it must be attached to an independent clause.

Now, the second half of this sentence couldn't really stand in total isolation in terms of meaning:

Instead, it must be attached to an independent clause.

This is because we wouldn't know what the "instead" was referring to. However, it still counts as an independent clause, because it is grammatically solid (it has a subject, verb, and predicate). In the sentence, once we have "the following," we have our predicate, so it's technically an independent clause, even though the meaning isn't complete (because we want to know what is meant by "the following").

Does that make sense?

-t
Tommy Wallach, Company Expert
ManhattanGMAT

If you found this posting mega-helpful, feel free to thank and/or follow me!
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 774
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:32 am
Thanked: 46 times
Followed by:14 members

by aditya8062 » Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:45 pm
good day Tommy sir
oki that a fair deal .from now on i will make it a point that the portion before the colon sud be an independent sentence although it might not be complete logical sentence and with the addition of colon that completion of idea will get into effect .

PS : i must say ur method of putting examples while explaining helps a lot
tons of thanks and regards
aditya
Top
User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 3380
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:20 am
Thanked: 2256 times
Followed by:1535 members
GMAT Score:800

by lunarpower » Tue Feb 26, 2013 10:13 pm
aditya8062 wrote:Heightened land erosion, caused by human activity, has many negative effects including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
A) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
B) including: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and harmful chemicals entering the ocean's environment.
C) including: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.
D) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, imbalance of the fish population, and harmful chemicals entering the ocean's environment.
E) including the following: algae blooms, coral reef destruction, certain fish populations rising, certain fish populations falling, and the introduction of harmful chemicals to the ocean's environment.

i am posting this question .the OA is A
i have the following doubt in this sc ,though i got it right but what perplexes me is the one rule of colon that is mentioned in manhattan sc book .it states that when we use colon then we need to make sure that the sentence before colon should be able to stand alone as a sentence .now in option A i feel that this rule is flouted
instructors plz help me with this .
thanks and regards
what's the source of this question? it has several rather glaring errors, so (a) you should ignore it, and (b) you should be wary of other problems from the same source.
(if you don't know the provenance of the question, you shouldn't even be looking at it in the first place.)

in any case, it's inadvisable to modify your understanding of the colon because of this problem. for one, i would stand by your original understanding, that the portion of the sentence preceding the colon MUST be an actual, complete sentence.

(also, no decent sentence will ever be written like the one above, because, regardless of context, "including the following:" can always be replaced by "including".)

official problems, people!
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

--

Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
Potete chiedere domande a Ron in italiano
On peut poser des questions à Ron en français
Voit esittää kysymyksiä Ron:lle myös suomeksi

--

Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.

Yves Saint-Laurent

--

Learn more about ron
Top
Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:06 am
Thanked: 1 times

by coolmrityu » Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:07 am
hi,

I have a doubt in Option D.

Why "harmful chemicals entering the ocean's environment" not parallel to the rest ?

Please reason it out with explanation.

Thankx
Top
Post new topic Locked
• Page 1 of 1