During the ceremony, the lifetime achievement award was presented to the organization's ______ in recognition of their forty years of...

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

• During the ceremony,
  • the lifetime achievement award was presented
    • to the organization's co-founders [?] Maria Santos and James Chen [?]
      • in recognition of their forty years of service to the community.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading and understanding this sentence:

During the ceremony,
the lifetime achievement award was presented
to the organization's co-founders...

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

• Choice A: co-founders Maria Santos and James Chen (no punctuation)
• Choice B: co-founders: Maria Santos and James Chen, (colon before, comma after)
• Choice C: co-founders Maria Santos, and James Chen, (comma in the middle and at end)
• Choice D: co-founders, Maria Santos and James Chen, (comma before and after the names)

So we're deciding about punctuation around the names. To see what works here, let's understand the complete sentence and what it's saying!

The full sentence tells us:

• An award was presented to 'the organization's co-founders'
• Then it tells us the specific names: 'Maria Santos and James Chen'
• It's in recognition of their forty years of service

What do we notice about the structure here?

Think about 'the organization's co-founders':

• When we say 'the organization's co-founders,' do we know which people we're talking about?
• Yes! An organization has one set of co-founders - we already know exactly who we mean.

Now when we add 'Maria Santos and James Chen':

• Are we using these names to figure out WHICH co-founders?
• No - we already knew which co-founders (the organization's co-founders).
• We're simply giving their names as extra information - telling the reader what those co-founders are called.

This is additional identifying information, not information we need to figure out which people we're discussing.

When you add extra identifying details after a noun that's already specific enough, you need to separate that additional information with commas:

• One comma before the additional details start
• One comma after they end (or at the end of the sentence)

So we need: co-founders, Maria Santos and James Chen,

The correct answer is Choice D.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas to Set Off Additional Identifying Information

When you mention someone or something in a way that already tells us exactly who or what you're talking about, and then you add their specific name or extra details, those details need to be separated with commas on both sides. This is because the information is additional rather than essential - we'd know who you meant even without it (called non-restrictive or non-essential information in grammar terms).

The Pattern:

• Already-specific noun phrase + comma + additional details + comma + rest of sentence

Examples:

1. With additional details:
   • 'The award was presented to the organization's co-founders, Maria Santos and James Chen, in recognition of their service.'
   • We already know which co-founders → the organization's co-founders (they're already identified)
   • The names are extra information → set off with commas
2. Compare with essential information (no commas):
   • 'The playwright William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.'
   • Which playwright? We need the name 'William Shakespeare' to know who we're talking about
   • The name is essential → no commas
3. Another example with additional details:
   • 'The committee honored its founder, Dr. Rebecca Martinez, at the annual gala.'
   • We know who → the founder (there's only one)
   • The name is extra → set off with commas

In this question:

• 'The organization's co-founders' already tells us exactly who we're talking about
• 'Maria Santos and James Chen' gives us their specific names as additional information
• Therefore: co-founders, Maria Santos and James Chen, (commas on both sides)