Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

16Notice Where Words Appear in Relation to Others around Them

Misplaced modifiers and odd word order are among the most common errors I see made by marketers—and by most writers, for that matter. They are also the easiest to correct.

Here's an example (adapted from a Chyten workbook exercise) of a misplaced modifier (in this case, also called a dangling modifier):

1. Original: We thought the New York Yankees sucked, having just returned from the play-off game.
2. Corrected: Having just returned from the play-off game, we thought the New York Yankees sucked.
3. Or even better: We saw the New York Yankees in the play-off game and thought they sucked.

Why? Because we—not the Yankees—returned from the game and we thought they sucked.

Here's another example:

1. Original: Though often misunderstood, scholars know that anarchy does not mean chaos.
2. Corrected: Though often misunderstood, anarchy does not mean chaos, as scholars well know.

What's misunderstood is the term anarchy, not the scholars (though they, too, are often misunderstood—all the more reason not to dangle that modifying phrase).

Once you start paying attention to misplaced modifiers and confusing word order, you'll notice it everywhere. One word you'll see frequently misplaced is only.

1. So it's not: Only publish good content.
2. It's actually: Publish only good content.

Why? Because the idea isn't that you should only publish—and not, say, also create and distribute—good content; the idea is that the content you publish should ...