This grammar lesson will show you how to use participles and participial phrases in your college essays.
Hello, Sentence Makers!
Did you know that you can bring your college essays to life using participles and participial phrases? Fabulous and fun, participles and participial phrases can make the sentences in your essays leap off the page, filling your readers with interesting facts and details, leaving them hungry for more of your writing.
Adding participles and participial phrases is a grammar move that will help you revise your sentences, especially when you are writing with sources for your college essays. Let me show you how!
To help me design the following lesson on participles and participial phrases, I relied on two of my favorite grammar books: The Writer’s Options: Lessons in Style and Arrangement, 6th edition, by Max Morenberg and Jeff Sommers and Grammar to Enrich & Enhance Writing by Constance Weaver.
To start, we should define a participle. A participle is a verb used as a modifier that describes a noun. Please do not get hung up on terms like modifier, participle and participial phrase. You have seen them many times, I'm sure of it. Let me show you how a participle works with a few examples:
Example:
Frustrated and confused, the student approached the teacher for help on a math problem.
The participles frustrated and confused modify (or describe) the student in this sentence. They are also past participles because they are written in the past tense of the verb: frustrated and confused.
Participles can also move around in a sentence, as long as they are near the noun they describe. This makes them free modifiers—get it? They are free to move around in a sentence.
Let me show you how:
The student, frustrated and confused, approached the teacher for help on a math problem.
Let’s look at more participles. In this next example, I am using a present participle because the verb is written in the present tense---the ing form of the word.
Rushing, the girl bolted to her English class.
The present participle rushing describes the girl who is bolting to her English class.
Now, let’s look at participial phrases. You can expand a participle into a participial phrase, which gives you even more options for adding details or information to your sentences.
Let me show you an example:
Rushing down the halls of the Spurk Building, the girl bolted to her English class.
The words Rushing down the halls of the Spurk Building work as the participial phrase that modifies (or describes) the girl bolting to her English class. And, like participles, a participial phrase is free to move to other parts of the sentence, as long as it stays near the noun it is describing. Take a look!
The girl, rushing down the halls of the Spurk Building, bolted to her English class.
So, participles and participial phrases can come before or after the noun they describe.
Let’s look at one more participial phrase in action.
Glittering with light, the ring on her finger dazzled her friends.
OR
On her finger, the ring, glittering with light, dazzled her friends.
Did you notice that I had to do a bit of maneuvering with the second version of this sentence? I had to rearrange the words on her finger, so that the word ring came next to the participial phrase. Which version of this sentence do you like best?
I love them both because they show me that I have options! When you use participles and participial phrases in your writing, you are exercising one of your many grammar choices for creating more interesting sentences in your college essays.
Your turn!
Use what you have learned about participles and participial phrases to create your own "I Am" poem.
The activity below is an adaptation of the "I Am" poetry activity described in Constance Weaver’s book, Grammar to Enrich & Enhance Writing (74-79); however, I have adapted her lesson so that you use participles and participial phrases to describe yourself; then you will use them to introduce and summarize a source that is helping you write one of your college essays.
Here is how you create an “I Am” poem
Step 1: Identify 3 roles that help define who you are. For example, here are three roles that define me: mother, teacher, writer.
Step 2: For each role, write actions you take in this role using ing present participles. For example, here are my roles. Notice how I use a commas and periods and what words I capitalize (or not), and do the same when you write your poem.
I am a mother,
driving,
praying,
struggling.
I am a college writing teacher,
planning,
grading,
worrying.
I am a writer,
writing,
dreaming,
stumbling.
Step 3: After you have completed step 2, expand your present participles into participial phrases by adding more specifics.
I am a mother,
driving my daughter to swim practice six days a week,
praying each day that she grows up strong, independent and kind,
struggling to help her solve for x in her algebra homework.
I am a college writing teacher,
planning a workshop on participles,
grading 120 opinion essays on the Paris Agreement,
worrying about the student who stopped coming to class.
I am a writer,
working words at Heavenly Donuts while my daughter swims,
dreaming of the lives I create on the page,
stumbling over words and sentences, trying to set my characters free.
Step 4: Look at the order of your ideas in your “I Am” poem. Think about each of your roles and arrange your three participial phrases so that the most significant idea comes last. (YOU decide which of the three ideas is the most significant.)
Doing this kind of thinking about the order of your ideas is called emphatic order, or emphasizing your ideas so that the one you feel is most significant comes last.
When I did this to my “I Am” poem, I rearranged the order for two of my sentences. See if you can spot the differences between my draft in Step 3 and my new draft below. (Also, notice where I punctuate each of the participial phrases with commas and where I use a period.)
I am a mother,
driving my daughter to swim practice six days a week,
struggling to help her solve for x in her algebra homework,
praying each day that she grows up strong, independent and kind.
I am a college writing teacher,
planning a workshop on participles,
grading 120 opinion essays on the Paris Agreement,
worrying about the student who stopped coming to class.
I am a writer,
working words at Heavenly Donuts while my daughter swims,
stumbling over words and sentences, trying to set my characters free,
dreaming of the lives I create on the page.
NOTE: If I took the stanzas out of the poetry format, then my stanzas would also work as beautiful sentences.
Let me show you:
I am a mother, driving my daughter to swim practice six days a week, struggling to help her solve for x in her algebra homework, praying each day that she grows up strong, independent and kind.
OR, another option:
Driving my daughter to swim practice six days a week, struggling to help her solve for x in her algebra homework, praying each day that she grows up strong, independent and kind, I am a mother.
OR, another option:
Driving my daughter to swim practice six days a week, struggling to help her solve for x in her algebra homework, I am a mother, praying each day that my daughter grows up strong, independent and kind.
You try it! Turn your “I Am” poem into sentences that describe you, as I have done in my example above. Play with your options!
Apply this grammar move to your college essays
Use participles or participial phrases in your college essays, especially when you introduce an expert or a new source.
Before you begin this activity, please note: using participial phrases in the way I describe below is only ONE of many, many, many ways to use participial phrases in your college essays.
Step 1: Choose one of the sources you are using to help you write one of your college essays. For example, choose one article, or book, or website, or film for this activity. Before you begin this activity, you should have carefully read the source, and you should be able summarize some of the key points raised in the source. When you have carefully read your source, go ahead to step 2.
Step 2: Answer some questions about your source. Don’t worry about creating participles or participial phrases just yet. Just write your answers to these questions.
What is the title of the source you are using in your essay? Is it a book, an article, a website, a blog post?
For example:
A book, Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products.
Who is the author and what do you know about him or her? Why is he or she writing about the topic?
For example:
Stephen Leahy is a Canadian environmental journalist and activist, who wants to spread the word about our wasteful and dangerous water use.
Step 3: What are 2-3 ing words that might describe or summarize some of the key points you discovered when you read this this source?
For example:
In Leahy’s book he is…
Teaching us about water footprints
Convincing us to reduce our water waste
Inspiring us to saving the earth’s most precious resource.
Step 4: Build a working draft of a sentence that employs participial phrases to describe some of the key points you learned from the source.
Use this template below to help you get started:
In ____________________, ________________writes about________________,
ing
ing
ing
For example:
In his book, Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products, Stephen Leahy writes about our wasteful and dangerous water use,
teaching us about water footprints,
convincing us to reduce our water waste,
inspiring us to save the earth’s most precious resource.
Step 4: Put your ideas into a sentence format.
For example:
In his book, Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products, Stephen Leahy writes about our wasteful and dangerous water use, teaching us about water footprints, convincing us to reduce our water waste, inspiring us to save the earth’s most precious resource.
Step 5: Play with your options!
Maybe you want to switch the order of your participial phrases.
For example:
Teaching us about water footprints, convincing us to reduce our water waste, inspiring us to save the earth’s most precious resource, Stephen Leahy’s book, Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products, helps us understand our wasteful and dangerous water use.
Notice how I made other adjustments to my sentence when I moved the participial phrases. Grammar moves are all about experimenting until you build a sentence you love. Don’t be afraid to take risks!
Maybe you don’t like having so many participial phrases--you can delete them or arrange them differently
For example:
Teaching us about water footprints, Stephen Leahy’s book, Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products, inspires us to understand and end our wasteful and dangerous water use, inspiring us to save the earth’s most precious resource.
Notice how I made other adjustments to my sentence now that I have removed some of the participial phrases. Such adjustments represent the endless possibilities you have when you learn and apply a new grammar concept.
You try it!
Some final thoughts on using participles and participial phrases:
The lessons provided in this post only offer some of the many ways to use participles and participial phrases in your writing.
There are still many options, so I want to provide you with some parting examples from the "Unit 4: Participles" chapter of The Writer's Options book by Max Morenberg and Jeff Sommers. The examples come from the 6th edition of their book. I will provide page numbers after each example, should you want to find them on your own.
Example:
Dazed and reeling, the old heavyweight proved an easy knockout victim (47).
In this sentence, the writer uses a past (dazed) and a present participle (reeling).
Example:
In his early movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger used his muscles more readily than his brain, mowing down armies of bad guys with an over-sized machine gun in one movie, chopping off barbarians' heads with his gigantic sword in another (48).
In this sentence, the participial phrases--- mowing down armies of bad guys with an over-sized machine gun in one movie, chopping off barbarians' heads with his gigantic sword in another---come at the end of the sentence. Notice how they add more information to the sentence.
Example:
Glaring directly into the camera and not blinking for long periods of time, actor, Anthony Hopkins, made the cannibalistic murderer of Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter, a frightening presence on the screen (49).
In this sentence, the participial phrase comes at the beginning of the sentence. Can you spot it on your own without having me point it out to you?
Example:
Disillusioned by the American public's negative perception of the war, some Vietnam vets suffered severe mental problems when they returned to civilian life (49).
In this sentence, the participial phrase uses the past participle, Disillusioned.
As you read the books or articles for your college classes, look for participles and participial phrases. Paying attention to how other writers use this helpful grammar tool will help you use it even more effectively in your own writing for college. Good luck and happy sentence making!
Recommendations for further reading:
I would recommend The Writer’s Options book to any college student. It is full of wonderful strategies for writing and revising sentences in your college essays.
I would recommend the Grammar to Enrich & Enhance Writing book to any college writing teacher. It is an amazing guide for how to approach teaching grammar and editing concepts to your students.
Works Cited
Moremberg, Max & Jeff Sommers. The Writer's Options: Lessons in Style and Arrangement, 6th edition. Longman, 1999.
Weaver, Constance. Grammar to Enrich & Enhance Writing. Heinemann, 2008.