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While writing an article I ended a paragraph with the sentence

"The data will require some degree of maintenance by the experts"

After rereading, I got stuck on by because for some reason it didn't sound right, and my next guess was

"The data will require some degree of maintenance from the experts"

That doesn't sound right either, so now I'm wondering what I'm supposed to write between "maintenance" and "the experts". The meaning I'm trying to convey is simply "The expert will have to maintain the data to some degree."

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    Have you considered side-stepping the issue with “The data will require some expert maintenance”?
    – Mike Scott
    Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 9:37
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    @MikeScott in certain contexts, those sentences have different implications. Without knowing the OP’s needs, it’s probably best not to recommend a different sentence unless it’s pretty much the same in meaning.
    – Fivesideddice
    Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 11:24
  • @MikeScott In the end I decided to go with "The data will have to be maintained by experts". I asked the question mostly because at times some of the sentences I write "sound off", and in this case I couldn't find a satisfying answer online.
    – RCap107
    Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 15:05

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I checked hundreds of examples from the reliable sources including YourDictonary. The structure itself is less used. Said that, the word maintenance of something is a common practice. So, you need a noun doing maintenance of something rather than maintenance done by someone. Active/passive style difference there.

Nevertheless, I could find both the usages - maintenance by and maintenance from. You can use both, IMO. But, you may ask yourself, which goes as a verb? ...maintained by/from? There, you feel that 'by' goes better.

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    I think from in this case links with require rather than maintain / maintenance - which you've probably not accounted for in your search. "It'll require (maintenance) from the experts" vs. "It'll require (maintenance by the experts)".
    – Maciej Stachowski
    Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 9:31
  • +1, but it’d be good to add an example sentence or two, to clarify things just in case.
    – Fivesideddice
    Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 11:25
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    In the end, I wrote "the data will have to be maintained by the experts", similarly to what you suggest in your answer. Thanks for linking that page on YourDictionary, by the way! I didn't know it, I'll be using it the next time I'll have trouble with a sentence.
    – RCap107
    Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 15:10

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