Don’t keep your reader dangling… wanting to find out who says or does what in the sentence you’re writing. That excellent piece of advice comes from science editor Dr. Claire Bacon, this week’s guest blogger. Here she discusses how to avoid ‘dangling modifiers’ that often confuse readers.

Ever heard of ‘publish or perish’? The term may not apply to writers of fiction (thank goodness), but it certainly applies to researchers wanting a successful academic career. For scientists, getting published is essential.

Dr. Claire Bacon is a trained editor with a sound grasp of English-language mechanics and a deep scientific background. Both qualities have given her the necessary knowledge and skills to help researchers get their work published.

Having completed her PhD in England, Claire moved to Germany, where she worked as a postdoctoral research scientist. During this time she published numerous research papers in peer-reviewed journals and began helping German colleagues write their own papers. This made her realize that many talented scientists need help getting their results and ideas down on paper: it was time for a career change.

After training in editing, Claire founded her own business, Bacon Editing. The blog on her website features her original articles on a wide range of topics. Although Claire wrote the following article for her clients (medical and life scientists) and the examples she gives are scientific, the grammatical principles are the same for any writing in English. You’ll find her tips are useful for all writers, not just academics. Now read on…

 

Don’t keep your reader hanging

Modifiers are words or phrases that give information about other words or phrases in the same sentence. They make your writing more interesting to read and help you to convey your meaning clearly and accurately. But only if you use them properly.

If it is not clear which word or phrase the modifier is supposed to be modifying in a sentence, the modifier is said to be ‘dangling’. Dangling modifiers can make the meaning of a sentence ambiguous or worse still change the meaning completely. In this article, I describe how to avoid dangling modifiers in your research paper so that your sentences say what you want them to.

Participles are forms of verbs that usually end in –ing (in the case of present participles, e.g., treating) or –ed (in the case of past participles, e.g., treated). They can be used in different ways:

They can work with auxiliary verbs to form a multiword verb:

• The patients were treated with statins to reduce their cholesterol levels (were = auxiliary verb; treated = past participle; were treated = multiword verb).

They can be used as adjectives in a sentence:

• Reduced cholesterol levels were observed in the statins group.

or as adjectives in compound modifiers:

• Statins are cholesterol-reducing

Dangling participles occur when the word that the participle is supposed to be modifying is not present in the text:

• Running at a faster pace, the heart rate increased (Incorrect)

The heart rate was running at a faster pace? Obviously not. We need to clarify who is doing the running for the sentence to make sense. Let’s try again:

• When the participant was running faster, their heart rate increased (Correct).

That’s better. Now we understand that the study participant’s heart rate has increased because they were running faster. You could make the sentence more concise by using the past participle (ran) instead of the present participle (running):

• When the participant ran faster, their heart race increased.

Remember to keep the subject and verb close together. Does this happen in the following sentence?

• Running at a faster pace, the heart rate increased in the study participant.

No, this is still ambiguous. Your reader will have to stop reading while they figure out who or what is supposed to be running. And you should never interrupt your reader.

Say who or what is doing the action

A gerund is a participle that takes the place of a noun in a sentence (e.g., family planning). A dangling gerund implies that somebody or something is doing the action, but does not specify who or what this is. Take a look at the following example:

• Intensive follow-up strategies improve the outcome of curative surgery after stopping chemotherapy (Incorrect).

The dangling gerund (stopping) has altered the intended meaning of this sentence. Reading this, we assume that intensive follow-up stopped chemotherapy as well as improving the outcome of curative surgery, which is not true. A better phrasing would be:

• Intensive follow-up strategies improve the outcome of curative surgery after chemotherapy is finished (Correct).

Rephrase confusing word order

A preposition is a word that indicates where something is or when something happened (e.g., in, on, under, over, after, before, at). Prepositional phrases include a preposition and its object, and can be used as adjectives or adverbs in a sentence. For example:

• After several months of rehabilitation, the patient could walk again (Correct).

Here, the prepositional phrase (after several months of rehabilitation) is functioning as an adverb because it tells us when the subject (the patient) was able to walk again. For this construction to be clear, the prepositional phrase must be close to its subject. If the two become separated, the meaning of the sentence will change:

• After several months of rehabilitation, the doctor confirmed that the patient could walk again (Incorrect).

Did the doctor endure several months of rehabilitation before she was able to confirm that the patient could walk again? Not a likely scenario – most doctors are able to make a simple observation without rehabilitation. Although your reader will likely use their logic to interpret what it is you want to say, you should rephrase this sentence to make it clearer:

• The doctor confirmed that, after several months of rehabilitation, the patient could walk again.

Don’t forget the subject

An infinitive is the basic form of a verb with the word to in front of it (e.g., to run, to jump, to sing). Infinitive phrases can play different roles in a sentence. Take a look at this example:

• To develop into a mature organism, implantation into the uterine lining is essential (Incorrect).

Here, the infinitive phrase (to develop into a mature organism) is functioning as an adverb because it explains why the action (implantation) is necessary. However, we do not know what is implanting.

An expert in reproductive biology will probably understand that the subject is a fertilized egg. But not everybody who reads your paper is an expert in your field. To make sure the meaning of the sentence is clear, we need to introduce a subject:

• To develop into a mature organism, the fertilized egg must implant into the uterine lining (Correct).

Make sure to say what you mean

Be careful with adverbs and adjectives like almost and only. It is important to put them next to the word or phrase they are modifying , or you may find yourself saying something you do not mean.

Take a look at the following sentences – the position of almost/only changes the meaning of each one: 

• The doctors almost treated all the patients (meaning: no patients were treated, despite the doctors’ best efforts) 

• The doctors treated almost all the patients (meaning: the doctors treated most but not all of the patients) 

• Only doctors treated the patients (meaning: patients were not treated by anyone who wasn’t a doctor) 

• The doctors only treated the patients (meaning: the doctors treated the patients; they did nothing else to the patients) 

• The doctors treated only the patients (meaning: the doctors did not treat anyone who was not a patient).

Saying what you mean and avoiding ambiguity are very important in effective writing. These tips will help you to specify which words and phrases are being modified in a sentence to make your meaning clear.▼

 

All about Claire

Passionate about clear, effective communication, Dr. Claire Bacon is committed to helping scientists who are struggling to write in English get their work published.

Claire is an advanced professional member of CIEP, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading in the United Kingdom. She is a member of EASE, the European Association of Science Editors, and of SENSE, the society for English-language professionals based in or with connections to the Netherlands.

Claire wrote Editing Scientific and Medical Research Articles for editors working for scientists. Her guide tells science editors all they need to know to help scientists navigate the journal publication process and get their research papers ready for publication. It explains how a research article should be structured and gives a step-by-step guide to editing each section. It also explains the elements of scientific style and gives tips on solving common problems that editors may encounter. The CEIP published the book in March 2022. It is available in both print and ePub from the CEIP and in print on Amazon.

Claire’s article was edited slightly for length. Read it in full here: Don’t Keep Your Reader Hanging: How to avoid dangling modifiers 
Follow Claire on LinkedIn or email her to learn what she can do for you.▼