The difference between “that†and “which†can be vague until you get the hang of it. “Which†sets off parenthetical information — stuff that can be lifted right out of the sentence without changing the sentence’s main point. “That†introduces information essential to the main point of the sentence. “The press conference, which will be held at 2 p.m., will include a question-and-answer session.†“A company that listens to its customers will succeed.â€
Thinking of which clauses as parenthetical information — bracketed by commas, rather than parentheses — is a nice way of explaining this distinction. And we didn’t even have to use the words restrictive and nonrestrictive, which tend to make non-editors’ eyes glaze over …
This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 3:03 pm and is filed under English usage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.



“I’ve worked with the staff at Dragonfly for years, and I trust their editing completely. We’ve used them on federal proposals, commercial proposals, IT documentation, marketing collateral … you name it. They are especially helpful on large projects, when we need a team of editors to get a lot done in a short timeframe. They also have great writers who can handle everything from white papers to case studies. Dragonfly is our editorial dream team!".
Latest Comments