As an author, you have to carefully craft sentences that grab the reader’s attention. Part of that, as I have mentioned before, is varying your sentence structure. In the beginning stages of writing your new piece, you type away to simply get your thoughts on paper. Speech is much more informal, which gives your writing a specific tone that may not be appropriate for many audiences. Correct grammar, however, sometimes goes out the window when speaking out loud. One common example of this is the use of misplaced modifiers.
A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that provides more clarity or additional information in a sentence. Adjectives and adverbs are examples of a word that describes another word, but there can also be phrases and entire clauses that add more detail to a word to make it more understandable to the reader. The problem arises when the author places the modifier in the wrong part of the sentence, and this confuses the reader instead of providing a clearer picture.
Let’s look at a few examples of misplaced modifiers as words, phrases, and clauses.
Word
Adjective
Incorrect: I bought a pair of pink women’s pumps.
How many times have you seen pink women? The adjective needs to be moved next to the specific word you want to describe.
Correct: I bought a pair of women’s pink pumps.
Adverb as a Limiting Modifier
Incorrect: William only took twenty minutes to get ready for work.
When placing “only” before the verb, it emphasizes the verb rather than the amount of time. “Only” is also an example of a limiting modifier. Other common examples are: hardly, just, almost, nearly, and merely. Limiting modifiers put a restriction on the word or words they modify. In this case, you want the emphasis to be on the amount of time.
Correct: William took only twenty minutes to get ready for work.
Phrase
Incorrect: Hanging on the wall, Betsy admired herself in the mirror.
What? Why was Betsy hanging on the wall? I’m sure she wasn’t really hanging on the wall, but your reader may have just broken into uncontrollable laughter. As I explained earlier, the way to fix this sentence is to place the phrase closer to the word that it describes.
Correct: Betsy admired herself in the mirror hanging on the wall.
Dangling Modifier
Incorrect: Waiting at home, the package never arrived.
In this sentence, the phrase “waiting at home” modifies the package. Is the package waiting at home? No, the phrase is meant to modify a person, but this is obviously missing from the sentence. Thus, this is an example of a dangling modifier.
Correct: Waiting at home, I was disappointed when the package never arrived.
Clause
Incorrect: Bobby received three days of in-school suspension from his teacher who was caught cheating.
Why would Bobby be suspended if his teacher was caught cheating? If you figured out that the second clause is misplaced, you are correct. It should be modifying Bobby, not the teacher.
Correct: Bobby, who was caught cheating, received three days of in-school suspension.
Squinting Modifier
Incorrect: People who jog regularly say they feel healthier and sleep better.
In the sentence above, it is not clear if “regularly” is referring to people who jog or people who say they feel healthier and sleep better. This is what is called a squinting modifier. It means that the modifier could be used for the words coming before or after it.
To make this clearer to the reader, move the word “regularly” closer to the one that says what you really want to convey.
Correct: People who regularly jog say they feel healthier and sleep better.
Also correct: People who jog say regularly that they feel healthier and sleep better.
As an author, you want to provide clear and effective communication so that your readers understand the story correctly.
When editing, read your words out loud and ask yourself the following questions:
- What is being described?
- Who is doing what?
- Does the sentence sound awkward or confusing?
- Can my sentence be interpreted in multiple ways?
Having someone else read your work gives an unbiased point of view. You may also want to consider paying a professional editor, especially if you are thinking about self-publishing.
Heather Malone writes children’s books that focus mainly on Montessori education, special education, and nonfiction. She also dabbles in fiction. Her nonfiction book, Montessori from A to Z, was published in 2023, and her blog on homeschooling students with disabilities using the Montessori method can be viewed at spedmontessorisolutions.com. Her passion is education, which is evidenced by spending over twenty-five years in the field before leaving the classroom to now provide technical assistance to school districts. She lives with her husband and son in Ohio and enjoys traveling to new places in her free time.
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