A punctuation question tests whether connected words need a break. Read around the blank for words that work together, including paired connecting words. Then test whether each part can stand alone: a full sentence says who or what does or is something and doesn't depend on another sentence. Periods and semicolons need full sentences on both sides. A comma can set off an extra description, but a spoken pause isn't a reason to split words needed for one phrase.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the words introducing each audience, starting with not only. What does each audience phrase tell us about the writing?
- Hint 2
Find the partner of not only and read the connecting words together. Is there an extra phrase to set off, or a complete new sentence to begin?
Step-by-step
Check the connection
Step 1Find what the audience phrases do
Start with not only for specialists and for the general public, since we're deciding how to punctuate the connection between the two audiences. What do both phrases tell us? They tell us who the students should write for, so both belong to the same instruction to write.
- Step 2
Test whether the ending can stand alone
Can for the general public stand alone? It has no subject or main verb, the verb that says what a subject does or is, even with also added. The ending isn't a full sentence, so the version with a period and the version with a semicolon would leave a fragment, a group of words that can't stand alone.
- Step 3
Complete the paired connection
What completes the connection begun by not only for specialists? Its partner is but also, which adds the second audience to the first. The connecting words stay together without punctuation because no extra phrase comes between them for a comma to set off. The version but also keeps that connection unbroken. Choice D.