participal phrase or prepositional phrase

[sunil_snath]

Is there a rule regarding the preference of a participal or prepositional phrase?

For eg (made my own example from an OG Q):

The new model suggests that prospective students examine the school's classes and teaching methods, and in using the set of objective criteria they derive from these analyses, decide on a strategy.

Regarding the underlined portion, is it wrong? or is it not prefered over the underlined portion of the following sentence:

The new model suggests that students examine the school's classes and teaching methods and, using the set of objective criteria they derive from these analyses, decide on a strategy.

Lastly, I am a bit confused about the placement of the second "and". Since we are already asking students to examine 2 things, based on the previous "and", the second "and" which is in bold should have a comma before it. Isnt that so?

thank you.

[RonPurewal]

The new model suggests that prospective students examine the school's classes and teaching methods, and in using the set of objective criteria they derive from these analyses, decide on a strategy.

two problems with this one.

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first, the meaning doesn't make sense.
if you say "in X-ing, Y", the meaning is that verb Y is part of the process of X-ing.
example:
in deciding whether to admit candidates to their school, the admissions officers consider not only the candidates' grades but also various other factors in their lives.
this is an example of the correct usage of the above construction. note that "consider..." is actually PART OF the process of "deciding".

if you apply this convention to the above sentence, you'll discover that it implies that "deciding on a strategy" is actually part of the process of "using the set of objective criteria".
that's nonsensical; it should be the other way around.

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second, the modifier isn't punctuated correctly.

the nonessential modifier in this sentence is "in using...", so there should be commas around that exact modifier. in other words, the commas should NOT contain the word "and".

here's an example of the correct usage i'm talking about here:
the admissions officers consider all the applications and, in deciding whether to admit candidates to the school, consider not only the candidates' grades but also various other factors in their lives.

Regarding the underlined portion, is it wrong? or is it not prefered over the underlined portion of the following sentence:

The new model suggests that students examine the school's classes and teaching methods and, using the set of objective criteria they derive from these analyses, decide on a strategy.

this version, on the other hand, is great.

first, the modifier actually makes sense. since "using the set of objective criteria" is PART OF "deciding on a strategy", it makes sense to use the former as a modifier and the latter as the main clause, exactly as this sentence does.

second, the words of the nonessential modifier -- and no other words -- are properly enclosed by the pair of commas.

Lastly, I am a bit confused about the placement of the second "and". Since we are already asking students to examine 2 things, based on the previous "and", the second "and" which is in bold should have a comma before it. Isnt that so?

thank you.

nope -- if you remove the nonessential modifier, taking the enclosing commas along with it, you'll notice that the remaining sentence is a list of exactly 2 actions. therefore, no intervening comma is required.

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also, i have a sneaking suspicion that you are questioning the official answer to a problem, since you have stated that this problem is derived from one of the og questions.

if that's the case, remember the universal rule -- don't bother questioning the official answers!
doing so is only a waste of your time, since, simply put, anything that appears in an officially correct answer must be... correct.