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Seven Deadly Sins Part 6
This series was written by Writing Tip Wednesday reader Rick Hull. Rick has been a health communications specialist with the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s (NCCDPHP’s) Office of the Director for 36 years, many of them as a writer-editor. He is NCCDPHP’s clearance coordinator and branding ambassador, CDC’s logo-licensing and co-branding coordinator, and a reviewer in CDC’s system logos clearance.
His favorite quote is “Great ideas are hogwash. Style and structure are the essence of great writing.” —Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature
One of the easiest errors to stumble into is the misplaced modifier. I would like to focus briefly on a type of misplaced modifier that is common in scientific writing: the tacking on, at the end of a sentence or clause, of phrases introduced by “compared with,” “resulting in,” or “based on.”
Example:
However, there is greater use of injectables among married women compared with single women.
Problem:
The rule of proximity (modifiers will try to attach to the nearest word they can modify) makes the tacked-on “compared with” appear to modify married women, rather than the whole clause “there is greater use.”
Revision:
However, married women are more likely than single women to use injectables.
Example:
Varied prevalences are observed in other groups, resulting in lower R-squared values.
Problem:
“Resulting in” appears to modify “other groups,” rather than the entire thought of the main clause.
Revision:
The varied prevalences in other groups result in lower R-squared values.
Example:
Editors as Intelligent Sitizens (EIS) reported a tenfold increase in jargon, based on multiple aggression tests of five former CDC authors.
Problem:
“Based on” appears to modify the nearest noun: jargon. “Jargon” thus appears to be “based on multiple aggression tests.”
Revision:
After analyzing multiple aggression tests of five former CDC authors, Editors as Intelligent Sitizens (EIS) reported a tenfold increase in jargon.