Learn English – Such as X or Y; or such as X and Y

grammarword-choice

In a sentence like:

It allows us to overcome problems such as sparseness and/or cold-start

, which of and/or should be used?

Best Answer

When using such as, you mention the items regardless of their probability, availability, ordering, or any other criteria. The other important point is that there may be other items subject to the situation, but it suffices (or you prefer) to utter only some of them. Because of this, in many academic papers are seen expressions like:

such as item1, item2, and item3.

In your case, if you mean "It allows us to overcome both problems and nothing else" I prefer such a structure:

It allows us to overcome sparseness and cold-start problems.

An example from Collins Dictionary:

The fruit and other foods such as meat, fish and eggs boost serotonin.

The sentence above uses such as because there are (many) other foods that boost serotonin, but the author doesn't want to list all of them.

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