Quick Help: Editing for misplaced or dangling modifiers
Quick Help: Editing for misplaced or dangling modifiers
- Identify all the modifiers in each sentence, and draw an arrow from each modifier to the word it modifies.
- If a modifier is far from the word it modifies, try to move the two closer together.
- Does any modifier seem to refer to a word other than the one it is intended to modify? If so, move the misplaced or disruptive modifier so that it refers clearly to only the intended word.
- If you cannot find the word to which a modifier refers, revise the sentence: supply such a word, or revise the modifier itself so that it clearly refers to a word already in the sentence.