Preposition "Of"

[Frosty]

Hello everyone!

I am having a little problem with academic writing: I can't get around the use of preposition "of". Quite often I see very extensive use of this preposition in the academic papers. For example: "Problem of Development of infrastructure" or "assessment of quality of provided services". This is especially prominent in the theme explanation in such papers.

So, my real question is: Is there some surefire rule about the usage of preposition "of" in such cases? Google doesn't really help, this case is mostly grouped with the elimination of unnecessary prepositions advices without any extensive explanation or rule given.

Based on my provided examples is there any difference between "Development problem" and "problem of development" or "quality assessment" and "assessment of quality"? Or are they easily interchangeable?

[Josef Essberger]

Hello everyone!

I am having a little problem with academic writing: I can't get around the use of preposition "of". Quite often I see very extensive use of this preposition in the academic papers. For example: "Problem of Development of infrastructure" or "assessment of quality of provided services". This is especially prominent in the theme explanation in such papers.

So, my real question is: Is there some surefire rule about the usage of preposition "of" in such cases? Google doesn't really help, this case is mostly grouped with the elimination of unnecessary prepositions advices without any extensive explanation or rule given.

Based on my provided examples is there any difference between "Development problem" and "problem of development" or "quality assessment" and "assessment of quality"? Or are they easily interchangeable?

For the first one the sense is
(problem of [development of infrastructure])
otherwise put as
(problem of [infrastructure development])

If you really wanted to remove all the "of's", then "infrastructure development problem" should work.

I put it like this so that you can get your head round the issue and think about it logically. Hope it helps

[OccamsRazor]

There is no specific rule that I am aware of.

I tell my students to prefer the use of an adjective in lieu of an "of" phrase when possible. It sounds better and is more concise.

a book of John's => John's book
a member of a church => a church member.
a road made of paved asphalt => an asphalt road