Participles are known as verbals
: that means that they're verbs,
but can also perform other functions. For example, they can be used
walking man (present participle as adjective)
the walked dog (past participle as adjective)
The present participle can be used as a noun; when it's used that
way, it's known as a gerund
is good exercise
The problem comes from the fact that a participle remains a verb,
and if you're not careful it will take a subject you don't mean, or it
will lack a subject but clearly seem to need one. Generally, it will
take the nearest noun as its subject if it can:
while walking along the sidewalk, speeding cyclists can pose a danger.
While running down the street, his eyes
glanced left and right.
means "while one is walking along the sidewalk," but the sentence says
that the subject of "walking" is "cyclists." As for the second sentence:
what is running down the street?
broken in three places, I used epoxy to fix the lamp.
The writer is inadvertently saying that
he or she, not the "lamp," is broken in three places.
down the highway, there is always something to look at.
"There" cannot be a subject of
anything, so "driving" has no subject.
Check your essay for dangling participles and recast any sentence
that contains one. Either supply a subject, or make the present participle
into a gerund:
lamp was broken in three places, and I used epoxy to fix it.
Driving down the highway is a great way
to see many sights.
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means that a subject and its
verb have to match in perso
There are three persons: first, second, and third; and there are
two numbers: singular and plural.
refers to the self; in the plural, it refers to the self plus others
refers to the one(s) being addressed
refers to someone or to more than one person other than the self and the
one being addressed
Here's a chart showing the verb "to be" in its various forms:
You (as in one person) are
You (as in more than one person) are
With "to be," the form of the verb changes quite a bit; with most
verbs, however, the only change you see generally involves the third person
You (as in one person) walk
You (as in more than one person) walk
Note the "s" in the third person singular. Subject-verb agreement
errors occur when the writer loses track of whether the third person subject
is singular or plural. It can happen when something intervenes between
the subject and verb and is in a different number:
Increasing the number of students,
professors, and programs contribute
to the stress on the system.
Here, the writer has gotten confused
about the subject of "contribute"; "Increasing" is singular, but some plural
nouns intervene--"students," "professors," and especially "programs"--so
he or she has made "contribute" plural. Always be sure you know what
the true subject of your verb is, and then determine whether it's singular
There are some special circumstances that lead to understandable
confusion. Let's say you have an "either...or" sentence with choices
that are of different numbers--in other words, one is singular and the
other is plural. The verb agrees with the closest subject:
Either the students or the professor
Either the professor or the students are responsible.
Also, "as well as" is not the same as
"and" and doesn't make the subject plural:
The student as well as the professor is responsible.
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There are two voices:
active and passive. Generally speaking, the active voice is better:
In the active voice, the noun does the action; in the passive voice, the
action is done by the noun. The passive voice is more wordy and it's
The image of
fire is used by the author. (passive)
The author uses the image of fire. (active)
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