Architect James Chen has revolutionized affordable housing design through innovative use of recycled materials. His residential project in Portland su...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Architect James Chen
  • has revolutionized affordable housing design
    • through innovative use of recycled materials.
• His residential project in Portland
  • successfully reduced construction costs
    • [?] each unit incorporating solar panels and rainwater collection systems
      • that minimize long-term utility expenses.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence gives us context:

• Architect James Chen revolutionized affordable housing design
  • by using recycled materials in innovative ways

Now let's look at the second sentence:

• "His residential project in Portland successfully reduced construction costs"
  • This is a complete statement - the project reduced costs

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

• A: with (no punctuation)
• B: ; with (semicolon before)
• C: , with (comma before)
• D: with, (comma after)

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues:

• "with each unit incorporating solar panels and rainwater collection systems that minimize long-term utility expenses"

Now let's understand what this is telling us:

• "with each unit incorporating solar panels and rainwater collection systems..."
  • This is giving us additional detail about HOW the project worked
  • It's explaining that each unit had these features
• "that minimize long-term utility expenses"
  • This further describes the solar panels and rainwater systems
  • They help reduce what residents pay for utilities over time

So the complete picture is:

• The project reduced construction costs, and additionally, each unit has features that reduce ongoing utility costs

What do we notice about the structure here?

• "His residential project in Portland successfully reduced construction costs" = a complete thought
  • It has a subject ("His residential project") and verb ("reduced")
  • It could stand alone as a sentence
• "with each unit incorporating solar panels..." = additional descriptive information
  • This is NOT a complete sentence on its own
  • It's a phrase that adds extra detail about the project

When we have a complete thought followed by a descriptive phrase that adds information, we need a comma to separate them.

So we need C: , with

• The comma comes before "with" to separate the complete main clause from the additional descriptive phrase

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas to Separate Complete Thoughts from Descriptive Phrases

When you have a complete independent clause (a full sentence with subject and verb) followed by a descriptive phrase that adds extra information, use a comma to separate them:

Pattern:

• Complete independent clause + comma + descriptive phrase starting with "with"

Example 1:

• "The museum expanded its collection, with new artworks arriving monthly"
  • Complete thought: "The museum expanded its collection"
  • Descriptive phrase: "with new artworks arriving monthly"

Example 2:

• "The company launched three new products, with each one targeting a different market"
  • Complete thought: "The company launched three new products"
  • Descriptive phrase: "with each one targeting a different market"

In our question:

• Complete thought: "His residential project in Portland successfully reduced construction costs"
• Descriptive phrase: "with each unit incorporating solar panels and rainwater collection systems..."
• Solution: Place a comma before "with" to properly separate these two parts

The descriptive phrase starting with "with" (called a prepositional phrase with a participle in grammar terms) cannot stand alone as a sentence. It provides supplementary information about the main statement, so we use a comma to signal this relationship to the reader.