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The topic of telepathy is not very suitable for a science class, which focus(es) should consist of empirical knowledge and established facts.

I'm not sure if I should write focus because I'm talking about a class, or write focuses because I'm talking about empirical knowledge and established facts.

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    Your original text no primary verb. The relative which- clause is syntactic gibberish, but it's not clear to me exactly what you want it to say. Perhaps ... the focus of which should consist of [blah blah].
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 12:06
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    @FumbleFingers has a spot on explanation :)
    – 13509
    Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 14:46
  • @parkgatedev: After thinking more carefully, I have to admit there can be constructions where something like the syntax of OP's relative clause could be "valid". Talking about quantum mechanics is not very suitable for first dates, which contexts should consist of social pleasantries and personal introductions. Perhaps some people would say that's actually "invalid" (it's certainly "clunky"), but it's credible enough to me. and I'm sure with a little more ingenuity one could shoehorn the plural noun focuses into a similar utterance, instead of contexts.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 15:00

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The topic of telepathy is not very suitable for a science class whose focus ought to be on empirical knowledge and established facts.

sounds (to me) better..

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The topic of telepathy is not very suitable for a science class, which focus(es) should consist of empirical knowledge and established facts.

The idea of focus is to concentrate on some single thing. Therefore I would use focus even though the "single thing" that you want to concentrate on has more than one component.

Or, if you wanted to get tricky, you could use foci and please the people who prefer Latin plural endings to English words. Additionally, Foci sounds better than focuses does, as a noun.

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You cannot use focus or focuses in that sentence, because it has several other problems.

You can write something like:

Telepathy is not a suitable topic for a science class, which should focus on ___ and ____.

(By the way, many scientists would tell you that telepathy is a fine topic to discuss or investigate in a science class, and that science focuses on theories as well as "established facts".)

It is not normal to think of a focus "consisting of" something. It makes more sense to say that a focus is something.

The closest thing you could say to your original sentence that would be acceptable to at least some people might be something like

The topic of telepathy is not very suitable for a science class, whose focuses should consist of empirical knowledge and established facts.

The following would be acceptable to more people:

The topic of telepathy is not very suitable for a science class, whose focus should be limited to empirical knowledge and established facts.

It would be ok to use focuses instead of focus. It would also be also ok to use foci instead of focuses.

We can think of one focus being on more than one thing. We can also have more than one focus.

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