Modifiers misplaced

RULE 27 Avoid Dangling Participles and Misplaced Modifiers... 

Always avoid dangling participles and misplaced modifiers. 

Dangling participles and misplaced modifiers, though sometimes difficult to recognize, are easily fixed by rearranging your sentence. 

A misplaced modifier is a word or phrase that describes something, but is in the wrong place in the sentence. It isn t dangling no extra words are needed the modifier is just in the wrong place. The danger of misplaced modifiers, as with dangling modifiers, is that they confuse meaning. 

Choice a makes no sense. Choices c and d are unclear because they are poorly worded and have misplaced modifiers. 

For most students, working through the second and third components makes the most difference on test scores. You ve already learned the math, grammar, and critical reading skills that are tested on the SAT. While you might need a refresher on some of those skills, what s even more important is understanding the test itself. In this book, we ll review misplaced modifiers, but we ll also reveal how they re used on the test, and how you can spot them more easily. When you are very familiar with the test s format through study and practice, your performance will improve. 

Choice b has a misplaced modifier—many people are not the fringe treatment. It is also wordy. The second clause in choice c is untrue. Choice d is unnecessarily wordy, and choice e is a sentence fragment. 

Alchemist. Choice c is grammatically sound but wordy. Choices d and e are confusing. The pronoun it in choice d is unnecessary, and choice e creates a misplaced modifier that sounds as if the author is one of his other books. 

The order of events is not quite clear because of the misplaced modifiers. Only choice d clarifies what actually happened. 

Once you get your first draff down, its time to start revising it. (11) You have to look for stuff like run-on sentences, misspelled words, and misplaced modifiers. (12) That s something I do all the time, so now I always watch out for that. (13) And you have to be sure that what you said makes sense. (14) That sthe main consideration, and not to be forgotten. 

Misplaced modifiers. Every style book covers this topic, but the rule on avoiding misplaced modifiers is often violated. A careful reading of the text by a good editor will eliminate this error. 

A misplaced modifier is one that is placed next to the wrong word in the sentence, so it inadvertently misrepresents the author s intended meaning. 

A modifier that seems to modify the wrong part of a sentence is called misplaced. Not only can misplaced modifiers change or distort the meaning of your sentence, they can also provide unintentional humor, as illustrated by the following excerpt from the 1929 Marx Brothers movie Coconuts ... 

Here are some other examples of misplaced modifiers ... 

In each of the preceding examples the writer forgot to place the modifying phrase so that it modifies the correct subject. In most cases, a sentence with a misplaced modifier can be corrected easily by moving the word or phrase closer to the word that should be modified. 

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