Dangling Modifiers

When using a present participle (an "ing" verb such as "using" at the beginning of this sentence) in a phrase to begin a sentence, you should place the subject of that "ing" verb immediately after the comma that ends the phrase.  Let's look at a couple of examples:

1) Waiting for the bus, I saw my friend.

2) Waiting for the bus, my friend saw me.

In both sentences, the modifying phrase is "waiting for the bus." "Waiting" is the present participle.  The person who is "waiting" differs in each sentence.  In sentence 1, "I" (the subject immediately the modifying phrase) am waiting.  In sentence 2, "my friend" (the subject immediately after the modifying phrase) is waiting.  When writers do not have the correct subject for the participle, the modifier is said to be "dangling."  The dangling modifier can be comical or confusing:

3) When applying for jobs, my CV speaks for itself.

In sentence number 3, "my CV" is "applying" for jobs.  To fix dangling modifiers, you need either to make the participle a complete verb or to put the correct subject immediately after the comma:

4) When I apply for jobs, my CV speaks for itself.

Quite frequently, we can find dangling modifiers in articles; in fact, the following article by Pierre LeBrun of ESPN (Nov. 25, 2011) about the NHL Winter Classic inspired me to write this post:

Gretzky told ESPN.com via text that he spoke with Sather this week. It was a "nice conversation," Gretzky said, but his answer remained the same.

Speaking of Gretzky, he is still owed about $8 million to $9 million from his Coyotes contract. The NHL met with former Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes in a mediation session on Tuesday. The league launched a lawsuit against Moyes in March 2010. Should mediation eventually produce an agreement, Gretzky will finally be paid the money he's owed, and frankly, it's long overdue.

Having said that, a source told ESPN.com the mediation session between Moyes and the league did not go swimmingly, so, at this point, it's anyone's guess when this will be resolved.

In the second paragraph here, Gretzky (the "he" that follows the comma) is speaking of Gretzky--which I do not think is the case.  The third paragraph is a bit more difficult to understand: "that" in "having said that" seems to refer to the previous paragraph, which means that the "source" who had "said that" might also be Gretzky.  Certainly we can guess what LeBrun means, but we do well not to have others guess at the meaning our writing.

Dangling modifiers also commonly occur with past participles (i.e. eaten, taught, walked) and infinitives ("to" plus a verb such as "to fix").


Resources

The Purdue OWL has a good section on dangling modifiers, as does the University of Ottawa.  The University of Toronto has a good little tutorial on how to fix dangling modifiers.

Towson University and Capital Community College have good exercises that cover all types of dangling modifiers.