A conceptual artist and designer embraced by both the art world and the fashion _______ Mary Ping was chosen to...

Sentence Structure

• A conceptual artist and designer
• embraced by both the art world and the fashion world[?]
• Mary Ping
• was chosen to curate the exhibition Front Row: Chinese American Designers
• for the Museum of Chinese in America.

Understanding the Meaning

• Let's start reading: 'A conceptual artist and designer embraced by both the art world and the fashion world'
• This seems to be describing someone -
  • someone who works in both art and fashion
  • someone who is recognized and valued ('embraced') by both communities
• This is where we have the blank.
• Let's look at the choices:
  • We're deciding what punctuation (if any) should come after 'world'
  • The choices are: nothing, a colon, a semicolon, or a comma
• To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!
• 'Mary Ping was chosen to curate the exhibition Front Row: Chinese American Designers for the Museum of Chinese in America.'
• Ah! So Mary Ping is the person being described by that opening phrase.
  • The sentence is telling us that Mary Ping was chosen for this curatorial role
  • And it's giving us background about her first - that she's this conceptual artist and designer who's respected in both the art and fashion worlds
• What do we notice about the structure here?
  • The opening phrase 'A conceptual artist and designer embraced by both the art world and the fashion world' is a long introductory description
    • It's describing who Mary Ping is
    • But it's not a complete thought on its own - there's no main verb saying what this person DID
  • Then comes 'Mary Ping was chosen...' which IS the main part of the sentence
    • Subject: Mary Ping
    • Verb: was chosen
    • This is the complete thought
  • The pattern here is: [Long description of someone], [Name] [action]
• When you have a long introductory descriptive phrase like this that comes before the main part of the sentence, you need a comma to separate them.
• The correct answer is D (world,) - we need a comma after 'world' to separate the introductory description from the main clause.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas with Introductory Descriptive Phrases

When you start a sentence with a long descriptive phrase that describes the subject (called an introductory participial phrase or noun phrase in grammar terms), you need to use a comma before the main clause:

Pattern: [Long introductory descriptive phrase], [Subject] [verb]...

Example 1:

• Without the description: Sarah was hired for the position
• With introductory description: A brilliant scientist with years of experience in research, Sarah was hired for the position
• The comma separates the description from the main clause

Example 2:

• Without the description: The museum opened to great acclaim
• With introductory description: Founded by a group of local artists and supported by community donors, the museum opened to great acclaim
• The comma signals where the introduction ends and the main action begins

In our question:

• Introductory description: "A conceptual artist and designer embraced by both the art world and the fashion world"
• Comma needed here to separate the introduction from the main clause
• Main clause: "Mary Ping was chosen to curate the exhibition..."

The comma is especially important when the introductory phrase is long (as in this case) because it helps readers understand the structure and know when the main subject and action are coming.