A punctuation question with a description beside a name tests whether you can set off extra information. Read through the blank to find the main sentence and where it continues after the description. Then cross out the description: if the sentence still works, it's an insert, or extra information. An insert inside a sentence needs matching marks at both ends, while a break between sentences needs complete sentences on both sides. Use what the words do, not where you might pause.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the second sentence through the words after the blank. Ask what sentence remains if the blank gives only the copier's name.
- Hint 2
Look at where the sentence picks up after the blank. If extra information sits inside that sentence, how should the marks at its beginning and end relate?
Step-by-step
Cross out and match
Step 1Find the main sentence
Start with the manuscript was completed by and read through to during a thunderstorm in 1427. Each choice puts Elena of Salamanca after by, telling us who completed the manuscript. What do the words about the scribe and her notes add? They describe Elena rather than name another person, so we're checking how to punctuate extra information about Elena.
- Step 2
Test the description
Where does that extra information end? Cross out the words from a scribe through local events, leaving Elena's name followed by during a thunderstorm in 1427. The remaining sentence tells us who completed the manuscript and when, so the description is an insert, extra information inside a continuing sentence. The verb described belongs to whose notes, so a scribe doesn't have a main verb of its own. Even with that verb inside it, the description can't stand alone as a sentence.
- Step 3
Mark both ends
Which version marks both ends without splitting the main sentence? An insert in the middle needs matching marks at both ends, so a comma that opens it needs a comma to close it. The version with commas after Salamanca and events does that: it separates the description from Elena's name and from during a thunderstorm in 1427. Choice C.