1. Session 5- Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers
UGRC 210 Academic Writing 2
Session 5- Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers
Lecturer: Dr. David Ako Odoi
Contact Information:

2. Course Overview Introduction
You are welcome to Section 5 of this Unit. In the previous section, you learned some useful lessons on your writing. You learned about run on sentences and comma splices. In this section, I will pay attention to some other important aspects of our writing for it to read well. I will talk about misplaced modifiers and dangling modifiers.

3. Objectives
By the end of this section, you should be able to identify misplaced and dangling modifiers
write to avoid misplaced and dangling modifiers

4. We sometime write essays and we are so confident that our work should pass well. We however do not take our time with editing our work to avoid ambiguity or to make the work say exactly what we mean.

5. Let us consider the following sentences:
Walking into the house, the phone rang.
While watching the movie their car was stolen.
The piano was sold to an old lady with crooked legs
They sent a parcel to his mother wrapped in silver foil.
He bought a watch from a shop which runs on small batteries.

6. These sentences at the first instance look good enough
These sentences at the first instance look good enough! I however want you to closely look at the sentences. Sentence (a) for instance can be read to mean that it was the telephone that was walking into the house!

7. Sentence (b) can be understood to mean that it was the car watching the movie. Also sentence (c) may mean that the old lady had crooked legs. We do not mean to be rude to the old lady so we cannot say this.
In sentence (d) we cannot mean that it is his mother that was wrapped in a silver foil. Sentence (e) may mean that it is the shop that runs on small batteries and not the watch.

8. These explanations show levels of impossibility as well as telling us to be care not to show rudeness.
So let us do some revisions of the sentences for them to read well and make meaning.
Walking into the house, the phone rang. (dangling)
We can revise this sentence to read:
While they were walking into the house, the telephone rang. (revised)

9. What I have done is to introduce the subordinator of time ‘while’ and I have also introduced a subject ‘they’. I have therefore made the first part of the sentence a subordinate clause and have attached it to the main clause ‘the telephone rang.’ So now we note that it is human beings that were doing the ‘walking’ and not the telephone.

10. Let us now deal with the second sentence
Let us now deal with the second sentence. While watching the movie their car was stolen.(dangling) We can revise this sentence to read: While Kofi and Collins were watching the movie, their car was stolen. Again, you will note that I have introduced a subject ‘Kofi and Collins’ to the first part of the sentence to make it a full subordinate clause to be attached to the main clause ‘their car was stolen’.

11. Again, you will note that I have introduced a subject ‘Kofi and Collins’ to the first part of the sentence to make it a full subordinate clause to be attached to the main clause ‘their car was stolen’. Now we shall tackle sentence (c). (c)The piano was sold to an old lady with crooked legs.(misplaced) will revise this to read: c)The piano with crooked legs was sold to an old lady, (revised)

12. What I have done is to move the modifier ‘with crooked legs’ and place it just after the word ‘piano’ and before the verbs ‘was sold’. So, we now know it is ‘the piano’ that has crooked legs and not the old woman. The next sentence has also used misplaced modifiers. d)They sent a parcel to his mother wrapped in silver foil.

13. We will revise it to read:
(d)They sent a parcel wrapped in silver foil to his mother.
What has happened is that I have moved the modifiers ‘wrapped in silver foil’ and I have placed them right after the word ‘parcel’. I guess you realize that this gives a more logical meaning than the original sentence.

14. Now let us tackle the last sentence:
He bought a watch from a shop which runs on small batteries.(misplaced)
This sentence can be revised to read
(d) He bought a watch which runs on small batteries from a shop.

15. You now note that the sentence has become clearer than the original
You now note that the sentence has become clearer than the original. I have moved the modifiers ‘which runs on small batteries’ and I have placed it directly after the word ‘watch’. We now understand that it is the watch that runs on small batteries and not the shop.
I hope these aspects of grammar, that is, dangling and misplaced modifiers have been understood.

16. Activity 5.1 Let us try an activity. Activity 5.1
Read the following sentences and correct any dangling or misplaced modifiers that you find in them.
Changing into my working clothes, the foreman told me to relax.
Before replacing an engine part, the ignition must be turned off.

17. Activity 5.1 (contd.) To be cooked well, you must steam vegetables.
I saw a monkey going to Accra.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
That was not difficult!

18. Activity 5.2
Now, explain what changes you made to make the sentences you just worked on to read well.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Congratulations.

19. Summary
In this section you and I have looked at Dangling modifiers and Misplaced modifiers. I told you that sentences may have more than one meaning if the modifiers dangle or are misplaced. We had some examples and did some corrections to place modifiers properly. I hope you found this lesson interesting.
Now let us meet in the next session and talk about commonly confusing words.