Documentary filmmakers often pursue several objectives through their work: raising awareness about social issues, educating audiences, and inspiring _...

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

• Documentary filmmakers
  • often pursue several objectives
    • through their work:
      • raising awareness about social issues,
      • educating audiences,
      • and inspiring action (?) both collective and individual (?)
        • whether through activism
        • or personal reflection.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts by telling us about documentary filmmakers:

• 'Documentary filmmakers often pursue several objectives through their work:'
  • This sets up that we're about to get a list of what these filmmakers try to achieve

The colon introduces that list:

• 'raising awareness about social issues'
  • First objective
• 'educating audiences'
  • Second objective
• 'and inspiring action'
  • Third objective

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• They're asking us to decide what punctuation to use around the phrase "both collective and individual"

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

The sentence continues:

• 'both collective and individual'
  • This describes what kind of action - it can be collective (group action) or individual (personal action)
• 'whether through activism or personal reflection'
  • This tells us how this action might happen - through activism (taking action in the world) or through personal reflection (internal change)

So the complete picture is:

• The base structure is: "inspiring action... whether through activism or personal reflection"
• But we're inserting extra descriptive information in the middle: "both collective and individual" to describe what type of action

What do we notice about the structure here?

• "both collective and individual" is a descriptive phrase that's being inserted into the flow of the sentence
  • It gives us extra information about "action"
  • But it interrupts the main flow from "action" to "whether through..."
• When you insert a descriptive phrase like this, you need to set it off with matching punctuation on both sides
  • Think of it like putting parentheses around something - you need both an opening and closing mark
  • Here, we use commas because the phrase is not a complete thought
• If we removed "both collective and individual," the sentence would still flow: "inspiring action whether through activism or personal reflection"

The correct answer is C: action, both collective and individual,

We need commas on both sides because this descriptive phrase is being inserted to give us extra information about the action.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Setting Off Descriptive Phrases with Commas

When you insert a descriptive phrase (called a parenthetical element or interrupter in grammar terms) that adds extra information but interrupts the main flow of a sentence, you need to set it off with matching punctuation on both sides:

Pattern:

• Main structure: Subject + verb + rest of sentence
• With inserted description: Subject + verb, descriptive phrase, + rest of sentence

Example 1:

• Without description: The research revealed new findings about climate change.
• With description: The research, conducted over five years, revealed new findings about climate change.
• "conducted over five years" is the inserted descriptive phrase
• Commas on both sides signal it's extra information

Example 2:

• Without description: The mayor announced plans for expansion.
• With description: The mayor, a longtime advocate for growth, announced plans for expansion.
• "a longtime advocate for growth" describes the mayor
• Set off with matching commas

In this question:

• Main structure: "inspiring action whether through activism or personal reflection"
• With description: "inspiring action, both collective and individual, whether through activism or personal reflection"
• "both collective and individual" describes what type of action
• Needs matching commas on both sides

Key principle: The sentence should still make grammatical sense if you remove the phrase between the commas. This confirms it's truly an inserted element rather than an essential part of the sentence structure.