Which vs. That?

Forums: Grammar, That, Which, English, Resume
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I am currently writing a resume for my very first college job, and I have a grammatical question about one of my sentences. Please help me, if you can. Here is the sentence:
"I can converse well with others, even in times (that/which) require the utmost patience and civility."
If you could help me with this, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

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Type: Question • Score: 5 • Views: 1,696 • Replies: 8

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@IvoryLatte,

Latte, I'd use "that" tho can't explain why

But I'd have writ "…times requiring…."

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@IvoryLatte,

That.

I use "that" unless the word follows a comma, which prompts me to use "which."

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@IvoryLatte,

"That"

If the phrase that follows the word is critical to modifying the noun you are supposed to use "that". If it is just an aside and you could completely remove it without changing the meaning of the sentence, use "which". In this case "times" is critically modified by "that require the utmost patience and civility". "That" is a lot more common that "which" and if you used "that" all the time, you'd probably be fine.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

... and if you used "that" all the time, you'd probably be fine.

Would "that" be appropriate in my sentence above, in place of "which"?

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@Ticomaya,

No, but it's not apples to apples since you are not using a clause to describe a noun.

Still I am reconsidering my comment. If you said

I use "that" unless the word follows a comma which is often unnecessary.

You could probably use that in the place of which but which sounds a lot better since the clause is extraneous.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

If you said

I use "that" unless the word follows a comma which is often unnecessary.

You could probably use that in the place of which but which sounds a lot better since the clause is extraneous.

The importance of a comma ...

Is this ever incorrect:

After a comma, use "which." If no comma, use "that."

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@engineer,

Quote:

If the phrase that follows the word is critical to modifying the noun you are supposed to use "that". If it is just an aside and you could completely remove it without changing the meaning of the sentence, use "which".

That is a prescription, a bit of folklore, a canard, an old wives tale, E, that has no place in the English language. It's has never been the case.

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@IvoryLatte,

Quote:

I am currently writing a resume for my very first college job, and I have a grammatical question about one of my sentences. Please help me, if you can. Here is the sentence:
"I can converse well with others, even in times (that/which) require the utmost patience and civility."
If you could help me with this, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

As to the grammar, either THAT or WHICH is grammatically correct and both are well suited to a resume.

But I have to say it's a pretty sad state of affairs, Ivory, that you might be "marked down" because there are a lot of pedants in the college scene who believe in the rule/prescription that Engineer described. The rule/prescription is, as I mentioned, completely bogus, but that won't help you if you have some ignorant SOB making a decision on your position.

You could, of course, take the academic approach, seeing as how it's a college job, and not fold under the pressure.

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Which vs. That?

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