WRITING TIPS FROM PAPERHELP: The Use of Gerund (PART 2)

We continue to talk about the gerund.

The position of the gerund

This error is also widespread. I am referring to a bad gerund position that can break the rule of simultaneity with the main action. In this case, the order of the factors does alter the result. Let's look at an example:

"Leaping, he reached the stone cliff."

As we have already indicated, the gerund always has to be a simultaneous action to the main action. In this case it does not seem so because we have placed the gerund in front of the verb. It gives the false sensation of a temporal disconnection between the verb "to jump" and "to reach", when they should be happening at the same time. Correct:

"He reached the stone cliff by jumping."

How to solve problems with the gerund

I often tell you that there are no magic formulas for learning to write. Unless, of course, you just decide to order a written work at the paperhelp service from a professional writer and not bother with all the nuances of writing. Well, in the case of solving mistakes with gerunds there is: when in doubt, eliminate them. Just like that. Well, not so much, but almost. 99 of gerunds are very easy to replace thanks to a simple rewriting of the sentence, and as we have seen before, even correct gerunds sound worse. You can also find many good uses of gerunds in this paperhelp.org review. Notice:

"He hastily undressed her, loving her next."

That "loving her" is the first thing that comes to mind to conclude the sentence. And of course it is incorrect because of everything we have commented before: there is no simultaneity between undressing her and loving her, both actions do not occur at the same time, therefore a gerund should not be used. To solve it is as simple as doing the following:

"He hastily undressed her and loved her next."

Easy, right? By removing the gerund we have eliminated any ambiguity. Now it is very clear that both actions are not simultaneous, that first one occurs and then the other. The reader will no longer have any doubt. Of course, the ideal is to know them and learn to use them well. That should be our priority.

Conclusions

The abusive use of gerunds is one of the usual evils when we start writing, so do not feel bad if it happens to you. But you have to detect it and solve it during the revision and proofreading process. To do so, I advise you to use the word search engine of your word processor. Search for the string "ndo", since all gerunds share it. Of course, you will have to check each gerund, one by one, to see if they are incorrect or not based on what we have seen in this article, and fix those that are wrong. It may even be necessary to eliminate those that are correct, if you use them too much, so as not to fall into repetitions. But you must do it, because as I always say, the important thing is not only what you tell in a story, but also how you tell it. Correctness must be taken care of in the same way as the argumentative part of our texts.