Solution S.C16 Chris Black
For $\vect{b}$ to be an element of $W=\spn{S}$ there must be a linear combination of the vectors in $S$ that equals $\vect{b}$ (Definition SSCV). The existence of such scalars is equivalent to the linear system $\linearsystem{A}{\vect{b}}$ being consistent, where $A$ is the matrix whose columns are the vectors from $S$ (Theorem SLSLC). \begin{align*} \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 1 & 2 & 1\\ 2 & 0 & 1 & 1\\ -1 & 3 & 1 & 0\\ 1 & 1 & 2 & 1 \end{bmatrix} &\rref \begin{bmatrix} \leading{1} & 0 & 0 & 1/3\\ 0 & \leading{1} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & \leading{1} & 1/3 \\ 0 & 0 & 0& 0 \end{bmatrix} \end{align*} So by Theorem RCLS the system is consistent, which indicates that $\vect{b}$ is in the subspace $W$.