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Consider this sentence:

In our work, they are mainly textual elements within the content, which serve as the starting point [ of a data region ] or distinctive features within a data region.

I left out "of a data region" as it is in the second part of conjunction, however in that part it has "within" preposition. Is yet my sentence grammatical and natural?

How about:

In our work, they are mainly textual elements within the content, which serve as the starting point of a data region or distinctive features within them.

is it "them" or "it"?

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    "Serve as the starting point" is fine, but *serve as the distinctive features isn't. Do you mean "serve to mark" instead of "serve as"?
    – John Lawler
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 17:38
  • @JohnLawler yes, I think they serve as starting point of a data region or they are distinctive features of a data region (within them).
    – Ahmad
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 18:02
  • @JohnLawler Without knowing what "they" are here -- other than that they are "textual elements" -- I don't know how you could say that "they" cannot be "distinctive features".
    – Jay
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 18:57
  • I didn't say they couldn't be distinctive features; I said they couldn't serve as distinctive features. The first clause separates the texual elements from the content (whatever those are, too). Easiest fix if you wanted to keep that anyway, would be to add of before distinctive.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 20:51
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    @JohnLawler Right!, I change it to "marker", In our work, an anchor is mainly a textual element on the page, which serves as the starting or ending point of a data region, or a distinctive marker within it.
    – Ahmad
    Commented Aug 28, 2015 at 12:25

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When you need to remove a repetition of an "object clause" (as it were), like in your example

...which serve as blah of blahblah or blew within blabblah.

but with different prepositions, you could use this technique:

...which serve as blah of, or blew within, blabblah.

(note the commas). Your sentence then becomes

In our work, they are mainly textual elements within the content, which serve as the starting point of, or distinctive features within, a data region.

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