College Composition (Abridged)

College Composition Abridged Study Guide

Infinitive phrase functioning as an adverb: • She chews gum to quit smoking . Infinitive phrase functioning as a noun: • To buy a car is Edward’s first goal. Infinitive phrase functioning as an adjective: • She needed an excuse to leave early . Gerund phrases: Gerund phrases are used as nouns. These phrases are formed by combining the ing form of a verb with its modifiers. • Reading a mystery story is Sam’s favorite hobby. • The student finished his homework by working steadily through the night. Avoid wordiness: Writers use phrases to make their writing more interesting. Using of a variety of phrase types can make reading more enjoyable. However, too many phrases in a row can cause confusion for the reader. It can make it hard to determine which phrase is modifying which word. • The driver raced his classic Corvette tires squealing out the parking lot, close behind him the police followed wanting to arrest him for a crime he committed in another state not here. This paragraph has too many phrases strung together. Is the parking lot close behind him? The police were behind wanting? Who’s not here? Rewriting can clarify the details the writer wants to convey. • Tires squealing, the driver raced his classic Corvette out of the parking lot. The police, following close behind, wanted to arrest him for a crime he committed in another state. Avoid dangling modifiers: A dangling modifier occurs when a phrase is not clearly connected to the word it modifies. Sometimes this happens because the word being modified is left out of the sentence, or because there are too many words between the phrase and its modifier. • Driving around the blind corner, the deer was hit by a car. With a dangling modifier, the deer was driving in this sentence. The placement of the phrase can affect the meaning of the sentence. This sentence can be rewritten to avoid confusion. • The deer was hit by a car driving around the blind corner. Avoid faulty parallelism: Writers can create faulty parallelismwhen they use a series of phrases. To avoid this, use the same kind of phrase for each item in the series. • I enjoy camping, to go hiking in the mountains, and swimming in the river. This sentence contains a gerund, an infinitive phrase, and a gerund phrase. The sentence should be rewritten to avoid faulty parallelism. • I enjoy camping in the woods, hiking in the mountains, and swimming in the river.

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