1
  1. Photosynthesis is the process in which the plants prepare their own food.

  2. Photosynthesis is a process in which plants prepare their own food.

Which is grammatically correct and what is the difference between the two?

6
  • 1
    Welcome to EL&U. If you hover your cursor over the "articles" tag, you will see there are 880+ questions on this topic. Clicking on the "frequent" sub-tag will take you there. Do any of these answer your question? Apr 7, 2017 at 18:15
  • In addition to both being grammatically correct and the being semantically correct, it's worth noting that by which works better than in which here.
    – lly
    Apr 7, 2017 at 18:18
  • @Cascabel : I have been through almost all those pages and now I'm even more confused. Plz guide me on this question.
    – user227490
    Apr 7, 2017 at 18:19
  • 1
    They are both correct. The first is telling the listener which specific process you are referring to (definite, specific process), the second is telling the listener what kind of process you are referring to (indefinite, there can be multiple processes in which plants prepare their own food).
    – seanmus
    Apr 7, 2017 at 18:19
  • @lly : I'm sure both are grammatically correct. I only wanted to ask the difference between the two.
    – user227490
    Apr 7, 2017 at 18:21

1 Answer 1

2

The difference between these two sentences is as such:

  1. The context of these plants has been established already. This context has been made either recently, or the plants themselves are the main topic.
  2. This sentence would be used in any other case. Here, the plants have no previous context. Even if they did, it would be acceptable to use this format.

You must log in to answer this question.