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I have seen a lot of sentences that end with another (typically) smaller sentences, often starting with "with", which give a description of some word that was introduced in the main sentence. I do not remember any specific sentence right now (sorry), but I want to compose such a sentence in my academic paper. This is how I write it:

Bonferroni’s post-hoc test was employed, with its results shown in table 3.

I am suspicious about the highlighted part. I don't know the underlying grammar for it. Is it correct as is? Should there be tense consistency (past-present-future) between main sentence (first part) and the descriptive part? Or always progressive verbs (-ing) should be used? For example, which one of the following is preferred?

Bonferroni’s post-hoc test was employed, with its results being shown in table 3.

Or

Bonferroni’s post-hoc test was employed, with its results that were shown in table 3.

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  • Bonferroni's post hoc test was employed; the results of which are shown in table 3. However, I find nothing wrong with your initial sentence other than the unnecessary hyphen.
    – Joe Dark
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 12:51

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Bonferroni’s post-hoc test was employed, with its results shown in table 3.

You are right, IMO, to be suspicious of your sentence. Normally such a with-clause modifies or qualifies:

Bonferroni’s post-hoc test was employed, with the confidence interval adjusted to ___.

But here your with clause is simply an addendum to the main idea, not a qualification, so a simple "and" would suffice:

Bonferroni’s post-hoc test was employed and its results are shown in table 3.

or a semicolon:

Bonferroni’s post-hoc test was employed; its results are shown in table 3.

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  • then how should I correct the my sentence to keep using with? I like using with for adding qualification or whatever you said to my sentence. What is the correct format?
    – Mehdi Haghgoo
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 15:11
  • Your second quote seems to be using the same wording style as mine. what is the difference?
    – Mehdi Haghgoo
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 15:14
  • I wasn't talking about "style" but about the kind of idea that typically occurs in such a with-clause. The fact that the results are shown in Table 3 has nothing to do with the test per se, or how it was used, the parameters involved, etc.
    – TimR
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 15:46

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