A punctuation question with the same transition in every choice tests sentence breaks and how the transition is set off. First, cover the transition and split the text, then ask whether each side can stand alone. A comma alone can't join complete sentences, but a semicolon can. A transition such as therefore takes a comma when it opens a clause and commas on both sides when it interrupts one. Use the transition’s meaning to decide which sentence it belongs to.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the words after the blank and look for who does what. Could those words stand alone as a sentence?
- Hint 2
Check whether Foy’s claim is complete at the blank. The word that introduces what she contends, so read through “narrative devices” and ask whether that thought has reached its end.
Step-by-step
Cover, split, and punctuate
Step 1Find the complete sentences
Cover therefore and read the two sides of the blank to see whether we're dealing with one sentence or two. Can each side stand alone? Historian Lydia Foy contends that starts a complete claim ending at narrative devices, so that doesn't leave the whole first part incomplete. After the blank, they guide readers through complex arguments has its own subject, they, and verb, guide. Both parts can stand alone, so the break between them needs a mark that can separate complete sentences.
- Step 2
Check what commas can join
What happens if we use commas at this break? A comma can't join two complete sentences by itself, and therefore doesn't change that rule because it's a transition, not a joining word like and or but. The version with only a comma before therefore and the version with commas on both sides leave a comma splice, two complete sentences joined by a comma.
- Step 3
Set off the transition
Where does therefore fit, and how do we set it off? Therefore means as a result, so it introduces they guide readers through complex arguments as the result of the footnotes’ role as narrative devices. When therefore opens a clause, it needs a comma after it, so the version with a semicolon but no comma doesn't set therefore off from the words that follow. The version ; therefore, uses the semicolon to end the first sentence and the comma to set off the transition at the start of the second. Choice C.