How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoidthem by Ben Yagoda Page A

apologize if I seem to be stating the obvious) is that
Morgan
didn’t resemble his first trial;
readers
didn’t include the charts;
newspapers
were not the most spectacular event; the eye doesn’t reverse the color scheme;
his comments
were not an expert;
Smith’s lifestyle
didn’t claim to be a simple man;
the bra
doesn’t sit in class or dance at a bar; and the reader’s
breasts
are not pricey. (Pause for snarky comment.) In each case, the italicized word or phrase is the subject of the sentence, and the opening phrase—up to the comma, that is—has to modify, describe, or characterize the subject and nothing but the subject.
    To get technical for just a minute, I’ll note that this is a problem only with introductory
phrases
(which do not contain a subject and verb), not
clauses
(which do). So there is no dangler issue in the following:
    Since he is running for mayor next year, he is resigning all his board memberships.
(Opens with dependent clause.)
    Kris is the starting center on the basketball team, but Jessica wants to replace her.
(Opens with independent clause.)
    An interesting thing about danglers is that a rather select group of writers commit them: the minority who would even
attempt
a complex sentence. They haven’t quite mastered the skill of putting one of these together, and thus can get themselves in rather spectacular trouble, but at least they realize that this level of complexity is, as Hamlet said, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
    Relevant as well is that danglers are very common—and, to a certain extent, acceptable—in speech. When talking, some “mistakes”are okay. Did you notice that the previous sentence has a dangling modifier (mistakes don’t talk)? In conversation, I bet you wouldn’t. As another example, let’s suppose I’m speaking with someone who’s an expert in ancient religion, and I say: “As an expert in ancient religion, I wonder what you think of devil worship.” That is a dangling modifier: “I” am not a religion expert. In speech, we give this a pass. In writing, we—and by
we
I mean the professors and editors of the world—do not.
    That’s unfortunate, because danglers spring incessantly from many writers’ fingers; it takes a substantial amount of discipline and rigor to prune them from our prose. (If you haven’t guessed, I am one of those writers.) Consequently, much more so than the other errors on my list, they show up in well-respected publications, such as the
New York Times Book Review
(
rather than providing the meticulous examination of the process of looking…we are treated to rhetorical flights that provide little perspective of any useful kind
), the
New Yorker
(
A major political donor, his greatest concern is to protect Israel
), and the
Chronicle of Higher Education
(
Having made it successfully through all three gantlets, all of the rejections I experienced along the way have become only vague memories
).
    How to avoid danglers? A simple strategy will help you smoke these bad boys out. First of all, you have to recognize sentences that have this structure: MODIFIER-COMMA-SUBJECT-VERB. The vast majority of the time, the part of such a sentence before the comma will either:
Begin with
Like, Unlike,
or
As
. (Example:
Like most of the student body, Rogoff has spent an inordinate amount of time avoiding hard classes.
)
Contain a gerund, that is, a verb in the
—ing
form. (
Being an inquisitive sort, I wonder what you ate for breakfast.
)
Begin with the infinitive form of a verb. (
To maximize your chances of losing weight, you should avoid fried food.
)
Begin with one or more participles. (
Shaken and not stirred, James Bond’s martinis are a twentieth-century icon.
)
Consist of a noun phrase. (
A popular mayor, Potter is running unopposed for reelection.
)
    Once you recognize the sentence, circle the subject, the modifier, and the verb. Then see if it makes sense if you keep all the elements but change the order to this: