College Composition

College Composition Study Guide

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 paddling my kayak in the lake. 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 paddling my kayak in the lake. Clauses Clauses, unlike phrases, contain a subject and a predicate. You will need to understand the difference between the two kinds of clauses: dependent and independent. Independent clauses: Independent clauses express a complete thought. These clauses describe an action or state of being and name the doer of the action. Independent clauses are sometimes referred to as main clauses. Unlike a dependent clause, an independent clause can stand alone as a complete sentence. • Jim read a book at the coffee shop, but he found it hard to concentrate. The conjunction but is used to link the two independent clauses to create one sentence. Dependent clauses: Dependent clauses have a subject and a predicate but express an incomplete thought. A dependent clause includes an introductory word that prevents the clause from standing on its own. This word can be either a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun. The addition of the introductory word makes the sentence require more information than is provided by the clause alone. A dependent clause must be in a sentence with an independent clause. The sentence is incomplete without both clauses. • Although he found it hard to concentrate , Jim read a book at the coffee shop. The word although marks the start of the dependent clause. Dependent clauses modify some element of the independent clause. It can function as an adjective modifying the subject or object, or it may function as an adverb modifying the verb. Dependent clauses may also function as a noun within the independent clause.

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