HI722{"id":721,"date":"2021-09-01T11:48:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T11:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/?p=721"},"modified":"2024-06-28T07:19:26","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T07:19:26","slug":"if-vs-whether-how-should-i-use-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/if-vs-whether-how-should-i-use-them\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIf\u201d vs. \u201cWhether\u201d- How should I use them?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>If vs Whether<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><mark class=\"bs-highlight bs-highlight-default\"><em><strong>If<\/strong><\/em> is used to describe a condition.<\/mark><\/p>\n<p><mark class=\"bs-highlight bs-highlight-default\"><em><strong>Whether<\/strong><\/em> is used to describe possibilities or options.<\/mark><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>If<\/em> and <em>whether<\/em> are two English words that are commonly used, but also frequently misused. For many people, goofing them up might seem quite harmless if they are not familiar with the difference these words bring to the sentence. For others, it is plain confusion!<\/p>\n<p>Well, irrespective of the reason, it is important to know the difference between <em>if<\/em> and <em>whether<\/em> if \u2018fluency\u2019 is on your writing checklist!<\/p>\n<p>How about we help you tick that off?<\/p>\n<p><em>If <\/em>is used to describe a condition.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I will work from home today <em>if<\/em> it rains heavily.<\/li>\n<li>We will increase the substrate concentration <em>if<\/em> we do not observe any change in the enzyme activity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can see that in both these sentences, <em>if<\/em> is used to add a condition for an action.<\/p>\n<p><em>Whether<\/em> is used to describe possibilities or options.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I am yet to decide <em>whether<\/em> to work from home today.<\/li>\n<li>The key clinical question is <em>whether<\/em> all patients with resectable rectal cancer should receive preoperative radiotherapy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here, <em>whether<\/em> tells us about the options that are available. <em>Whether<\/em> is usually accompanied by \u2018or not\u2019; in most cases, it can be dropped.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How are <em>if<\/em> and <em>whether<\/em> different?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To understand the difference between <em>if<\/em> and <em>whether<\/em>, let us look at the following example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We need to determine <em>whether<\/em> the stunted growth observed in these plants is due to deficiency of nitrogen or magnesium.<\/li>\n<li>We need to determine <em>if<\/em> the stunted growth observed in these plants is due to deficiency of nitrogen or magnesium.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When <em>whether<\/em> is used, it suggests that only two possibilities are being considered, i.e., deficiency of either nitrogen or magnesium. However, when we replace <em>whether<\/em> with <em>if<\/em>, the sentence suggests more than two possibilities. In our example, the possibilities could be deficiency of either nitrogen or magnesium, both, or none!<\/p>\n<p>This is how <em>if<\/em> and <em>whether<\/em> differ from each other. Now you know that interchanging these words can modify the meaning of the sentence considerably. Such an error can lead to miscommunication easily, more so in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/\">academic writing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So, how can we avoid such errors? Remember<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use <em>if<\/em> for conditional sentences.<\/li>\n<li>Use <em>whether<\/em> for presenting two alternatives.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Quite easy, isn\u2019t it? If there are any other such words that have baffled you, let us know in the comments section!<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If vs Whether &#8211; If is used to describe a condition. Whether is used to describe possibilities or options.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[176,17],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/19.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1061,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions\/1061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinka.ai\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}