A punctuation question with a joining word tests whether each side can stand alone. Split the text at the joining word and find who or what each part is about, then find the verb saying what they do or are. A full sentence needs both and can't depend on another sentence; two full sentences take a period, a semicolon on its own, or a comma before a joining word like and or but. Check the mark and joining word together, rather than punctuating by pauses.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with the words before the blank and look for who credits the invention. Then find the verb that says what that subject does.
- Hint 2
Test the words after the blank as a sentence on their own. Do they give you both a subject and a main verb, or do they need the first part to supply one?
Step-by-step
Test the two sides
Step 1Find the first full sentence
In Many historians credit, Many historians is the subject, who the sentence is about. The main verb is credit, which tells us what that subject does. Read through literacy to see what the press helped spread, then ask: can that whole part stand alone? Yes, it gives a complete thought about the press’s effect on literacy, so we have a full sentence before the joining word.
- Step 2
Check for a second subject
Now ask whether few acknowledge how drastically it reshaped the economics of book production can stand alone too. Here, few means few people and is the subject, while acknowledge is the main verb. The words beginning with how tell us what those people acknowledge. We have a second full sentence with its own subject, so but joins two full sentences rather than two verbs sharing one subject.
- Step 3
Pair the mark with the joining word
With but introducing few acknowledge, where should the mark go? To join two full sentences, a comma belongs immediately before a joining word such as but, so the word stays with the sentence it introduces. A semicolon is the usual alternative when we join full sentences without a joining word, not the mark that pairs with but here. The wording literacy, but gives us the comma before the joining word. Choice C.