Understanding participles and how to use them

What is a participle?

A participle is a verb that is used as an adjective. In the following cases, action verbs such as eat and call are transformed into adjectives that modify the nouns that follow. Consider the following examples:

• I am eating breakfast.
• She is calling her mom.
• Tony played guitar in high school.
• My one-year-old niece is annoying.
• My co-worker is ready for a nice, relaxing vacation.

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Here, the nouns at the end of these sentences are being modified and described by an action. There are two types of participles: present participles and past participles.

What is a present participle?

The present participle is used to describe current actions, or as an adjective for something that is presently happening. Present participles typically end with -ing, for example:

• He is singing.
• The shining sun made my day.

Here are some examples of sentences that use actions as the present participle:

• I’m running to school.

In the above sentence, the verb “to run” becomes “running” in its present participle form. Here are some examples of sentences that use adjectives as the present participle:

• That meal was satisfying.

In the above sentence, the verb ‘satisfy” becomes the adjective “satisfying,” the present participle of the word to describe the meal and fit the present tense.

• Kim wants to do something exciting.

In this sentence, the verb “excite” becomes the adjective “exciting” to describe what Kim wants to do and fit the present tense. Exciting is the present participle of “excite.”

What is a past participle?

In the past participle, verbs or adjectives are used in the past tense. You can usually tell when the past participle is being used when a verb or adjective ends in -ed. For example:

• I called my boss.
• I braked for the squirrel crossing the road.

Here are some examples of past participles being used to describe actions that already occurred:

• Manuel completed his assignment.

In the above sentence, the verb “complete” becomes “completed” to fit the past tense. “Completed” is the past participle of “complete.”

• My dog rolled in the mud.

In the above sentence, the verb “roll” becomes “rolled” to fit the past tense. “Rolled” is the past participle of “roll.”

Here are some examples of sentences that use adjectives as the past participle:

• The test confused most of the students.

Here, the adjective “confused” is the past participle of the verb “confuse.”

• The professor was disappointed in her students.

In the sentence above, the adjective ‘disappointed’ is the past participle of the verb ‘disappoint.’

How to use participles correctly

While writing a sentence with past or present participles, be careful of dangling participles. Dangling participles are also known as dangling modifiers. They can make your sentences difficult to understand and read by modifying the wrong noun. Here’s an example of a dangling participle in a sentence:

• After finishing my drink, the bartender took my glass.

In this sentence, it seems like the bartender finished the speaker’s drink. Luckily, sentences with dangling participles are easy to re-order. You could re-write the sentence to be:

• After I finished my drink, the bartender took my glass.

This sentence makes it clearer who finished the drink.

Here’s another example of a dangling participle:

• Driving down the freeway, Jane’s mother fell asleep.

In the above sentence, it seems like Jane’s mother fell asleep while driving. To make the sentence less confusing, it could be re-written to:

• While Jane drove down the freeway, her mother fell asleep.

While using participles in your writing, be sure to re-read your sentences to make sure that they are coherent.

Understanding how to use present and past participles will greatly improve your writing. To discover more ways you can improve your writing, learn more about common grammatical errors and how to avoid them.