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Let's say that, for the reader's convenience, I want to repeat in Chapter 7 an equation that I stated in Chapter 2.

What is the correct way of saying "for the reader's convenience"?:

a) For the reader's convenience

b) For reader's convenience

c) For reader convenience

Thank you.

Community
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baister
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  • I've seen both (a) and (c); in general, my experience has been that (a) is used as part of a complete sentence (e.g., Equation 2.1 is here reproduced for the reader's convenience.), while (c) is more likely to be used in a parenthetical note (e.g., (reproduced for reader convenience)). – Jeff Zeitlin Aug 19 '19 at 11:11
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    Another possibility could be, "Recall from Chapter 2 the following equation..." – mkennedy Aug 20 '19 at 23:37
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    I can also think of plural forms: for readers' convenience and for the readers' convenience. – Ansa211 Aug 21 '19 at 09:06

1 Answers1

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When wondering about questions like this, I consult:

  • google n-grams, which show that for the reader's convenience is by far the most common of the three expressions

  • a large corpus

    • such as the Corpus of Contemporary American English, where reader 's convenience (the space is there because of the way words are separated in the corpus) yields a single result, again in the phrase for the reader's convenience, while reader convenience yields two occurrences of for reader convenience

    • in the iWeb Corpus, a search for * * reader 's convenience yields

      • 31 occurrences of for the reader's convenience
      • 1 occurrence of each of as per reader's convenience, the present reader's convenience, the ordinary reader's convenience, provided for reader's convenience, and for your reader's convenience

      while * * reader convenience gives

      • 11 occurrences of added for reader convenience
      • 9 occurrences of as a reader convenience
      • 3 occurrences of provided for reader convenience as well as # For reader convenience (where # is the beginning of a paragraph or something like that)
      • 2 occurrences of . For reader convenience, are for reader convenience, category for reader convenience, included for reader convenience, pdf for reader convenience, settings for reader convenience
      • 11 other phrases, each of which occurs just once

Based on this, I would go with For the reader's convenience.

Ansa211
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  • This is a very interesting, practical and useful answer. Yet, I would like to know if there is any stylistic or grammatical rule that establishes the (most) correct use. – baister Aug 19 '19 at 11:57