I've been looking everywhere to see what's the right approach, and I can't find anything in english.stackexchange.com or other sites.
I have the following sentence:
Our customers love this feature, but we know it's not always that easy if you don't have previous experience of creating rating scales.
I'm wondering if the above is correct, or if this is correct instead:
Our customers love this feature, but we know it's not always that easy if you don't have previous experience in creating rating scales.
Notice the difference in the use of “of” vs. “in”.
Which one is the correct one in this sentence?
Best Answer
While you will not be misunderstood using either case, and I'm certain you will find plenty of examples of both in current language use. I'd suggest this distinction will always remain clear:
Use in when talking about experience meaning a skill level.
In these cases you are talking about experience as a quantity, and showing that you want to have a quantity of experience within a certain field/subject. You can also change "in" to "with" for the same meaning.
Use of when talking about an experience as an event.
In these cases you are describing an experience as an event, where "experience" could be replaced with "phenomenon" or "feeling". As such, you are giving more detail on what the exact feeling was by saying "the experience of falling" etc. Here, experience is not quantifiable, it is referring to the general idea of the event.