Pructus Posted 12 years ago
Grammar
Sentence analysis
A study indicated that student perceptions of counselling often caused males to
be reluctant to seek out the school counsellor for assistance. Therefore, informal
discussions were conducted with a group of male students to determine their views
on using an online counselling facility through the school website. The themes of
attractiveness, privacy, and relative anonymity were identified by the students.
That is, these male students believed a chat facility needed to be visually attractive
and suggested inclusion of comic figures. Further, the importance of chat room
security providing privacy as well as users not being required to reveal their
identity, giving them relative anonymity, was the main factors valued by this
group of boys. As the online service was utilised, it became obvious that in most
cases, students followed up the online appointment with subsequent ‘face-to-face’
consultations with the counsellor.
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The underlined part seems to be analysed into two ways. Which is the native’s sense of English?
1. [the importance of chat room security providing privacy] as well as [users not being required to reveal their identity, giving them relative anonymity,] was the main factors valued by this group of boys.
2. the importance of [chat room security providing privacy] as well as (the importance of) [users not being required to reveal their identity, giving them relative anonymity,] was the main factors valued by this group of boys.
be reluctant to seek out the school counsellor for assistance. Therefore, informal
discussions were conducted with a group of male students to determine their views
on using an online counselling facility through the school website. The themes of
attractiveness, privacy, and relative anonymity were identified by the students.
That is, these male students believed a chat facility needed to be visually attractive
and suggested inclusion of comic figures. Further, the importance of chat room
security providing privacy as well as users not being required to reveal their
identity, giving them relative anonymity, was the main factors valued by this
group of boys. As the online service was utilised, it became obvious that in most
cases, students followed up the online appointment with subsequent ‘face-to-face’
consultations with the counsellor.
********
The underlined part seems to be analysed into two ways. Which is the native’s sense of English?
1. [the importance of chat room security providing privacy] as well as [users not being required to reveal their identity, giving them relative anonymity,] was the main factors valued by this group of boys.
2. the importance of [chat room security providing privacy] as well as (the importance of) [users not being required to reveal their identity, giving them relative anonymity,] was the main factors valued by this group of boys.
Top answer
Either way works, though I presume the author's intention was #2. In any case, the singular verb 'was' sounds awful there so far away from the grammatical subject and so near 'factors'.
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Either way works, though I presume the author's intention was #2. In any case, the singular verb 'was' sounds awful there so far away from the grammatical subject and so near 'factors'.
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