Question

which sentence is written correctly?

ms. andrade showed us a documentary in class today because the film \focuses on a similar subject\ to a book we are going to read.
ms. andrade showed us a documentary in class today because the film, \focuses on a similar subject,\ to a book we are going to read.
ms. andrade showed us a documentary in class today because the film \focuses on a similar subject\ to a book we are going to read.
ms. andrade showed us a documentary in class today because the film, \focuses on a similar subject\ to a book we are going to read.

Explanation:

🆕 New Concept Discovered: Integrating Quotes and Punctuation
How to smoothly blend quotes into your sentences

Step 1: Analyze the quote integration

When you integrate a short quote or phrase into your own sentence as a natural part of the grammar, you do not need to set it off with a comma.

In this sentence, the phrase "focuses on a similar subject" acts directly as the verb phrase for the subject "the film". Introducing a comma between a subject and its verb (e.g., the film, "focuses...") is grammatically incorrect because it disrupts the natural flow of the sentence.

Therefore, we must eliminate any options that place a comma before the quotation marks:

• Incorrect: ...because the film, "focuses...
• Incorrect: ...because the film, "Focuses...

Step 2: Determine capitalization rules

When a quoted phrase is integrated seamlessly into the middle of your sentence and does not start a new, complete sentence of its own, the first word of the quote should not be capitalized.

• Incorrect: ...the film "Focuses on a similar subject"... (Capitalizing "Focuses" is incorrect here because it is not the start of a complete quoted sentence).
• Correct: ...the film "focuses on a similar subject"... (Lowercase "focuses" correctly blends into the sentence structure).

Step 3: Evaluate the remaining option

Let's look at the third option:

Ms. Andrade showed us a documentary in class today because the film "focuses on a similar subject" to a book we are going to read.

• No unnecessary comma separates the subject (the film) from its verb phrase ("focuses on...").
• The quote starts with a lowercase letter ("focuses"), which is correct because it is integrated directly into the flow of the sentence.
• No punctuation is needed inside or after the quotation marks before the prepositional phrase to a book.

This option is written correctly.

Answer:

Third Option:
Ms. Andrade showed us a documentary in class today because the film "focuses on a similar subject" to a book we are going to read.