Welcome to UsingEnglish.com, my fellow HongKonger!
The following is worth your reference.
https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/t...l=1#post354634

Student or Learner
When do we use gerund after "approach to"?
"In this paper 1, we present a new approach to construct multicast trees in MPLS networks."
"The Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix (hereafter labeled MTMM) is an approach to assessing the construct validity of a set of measures in a study."
Last edited by Rover_KE; 23-Feb-2017 at 10:40. Reason: Improving format.
Welcome to UsingEnglish.com, my fellow HongKonger!
The following is worth your reference.
https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/t...l=1#post354634
I am not a teacher.
I agree. The first sentence above isn't natural.
To make a special strawberry cake, I use a new approach.
=
I use a new approach to making a special strawberry cake.
Are they same?
They mean the same thing. The second is simpler, more direct, and preferable in most circumstances.
I am not a teacher.
I think 'to' means 'in order to' in sentence 1, so the infinitive is correct after it.
I am not a teacher.
If so, then yes, but it doesn't make sense when read like that, as identifying a purpose. That would be like saying that constructing multicast trees is the purpose of the presenting of the approach.
But the sentence is obviously referring to a new way of doing something, i.e, constructing multicast trees. There's no need, then, to use any language of purpose.
Bookmarks