**VERBALS**

In English, some words are formed from verbs, but don’t act as verbs. Instead, they function as nouns,
adjectives and adverbs. Such words are called verbals.

1. Gerunds
A gerund is a verbal ending in -ing, which functions as a noun.
If you take almost any verb in the simple present form, add -ing (such as playing, eating, watching,
sewing etc.) then use it as a noun, you will have a gerund!

Ex. He loves running. (See how the gerund is used as a noun here? It is a direct object.)
Running is a great activity. (Running is also a noun but it is the subject of the sentence)
è In both sentences you could replace the gerunds with any other noun and the sentences would
still make grammatical sense.
è NOTES : formed from verbs/ end with -ing/ function as nouns

2. Participles

Participles are verbals when they function as adjectives.

There are two types of participles : present (always end with -ing) and past (end with -ed, -en, -t, -d
or -n). When used as adjectives, they are verbals.

Ex. He could not quiet the crying baby. (The present participle Is used as an adjective here. It
describes the baby.)

The excited children were noisy.

Crying all the way, Betty ran out. (Here, we have a participle phrase which functions as an adjective
as it describes Betty.)
è Notes: present & past / Present participles end with -ing, Past ones have various endings. / Are
verbals when they function as adjectives.

3. Infinitives

Infinitives are formed by adding ‘to’ in front of the simple present form of a verb (to run, to play, to
sit, to eat, etc.).

Ex. He went to ask his father. (describes why he went) : Adverb

Bring a book to read. (describe the type of book) : Adjective

To travel requires money. (Here the infinitive is a noun – the subject): Noun

è Notes: Formed by adding ‘to’ before the present simple form.

è Can function as nouns, adjectives or adverbs.
WORDS ENDING WITH -ING
Many words end with -ing. However, sometimes these words are GERUNDS (nouns) and other times they
function as PARTICIPLES (adjectives).
Read the passage below and then circle the GERUNDS and underline the PARTICIPLES which are functioning
as adjectives.

1. Grabbing his coat, Tom hastily pursued the suspect.

2. My mother, knowing that I am not perfect, loves me.

3. For stage actors, rehearsing is an essential part of their craft.

4. The changing of the guards takes place at Buckingham Palace every day.

5. Whispering at the back of the room, the girls never heard the teacher’s instructions.

Stepping hesitantly, Stephen walked across the garden towards the house Everything within him
wanted to run in the opposite direction, but he clenched his trembling hands and pushed on. The grass was
overgrown, and it was clear that the gardening had not been done for quite some time. That should have
been his first clue, yet his nerves were clouding his judgment.
Finally, he made it to the door. Brining his hand up to the bell, he paused. It had been almost six years
since he had entered this house, and he knew that he wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms. How he had
left it so long, Stephen didn’t know. It was true that he wasn’t good at communication but surely the blame
didn’t lie entirely with him.
Anxiously, he pressed the doorbell. The chilling tones of the bell sounded threatening to his ears, and
Stephen braced himself for the response, but none came. HE tried again. Still, only silence was returned. Then
Stephen realized that his worrying had been for nothing; nobody was even home.

For each the words below, you must write two sentences, displaying the two different uses.
CRYING
• Gerund: Crying is pointless; it doesn’t solve anything.
• Participle: It was impossible to calm the crying baby.

SMOKING
• Gerund:
• Participle:

READING

• Gerund:
• Participle:
TEACHING

• Gerund:
• Participle:

RUNNING

• Gerund:
• Participle:

LYING

• Gerund:
• Participle:

DANGLING PARTICIPLES

When we use participles as adjectives in participle phrases, we need to make sure that the participle phrase
clearly relates to the subject it is describing. If it is ambiguous, we may have a case of a dangling participle.

Flying south for the winter, I saw a flock of birds.

è “flying south for the winter” : This is the participle phrase, but who was flying south?
The speaker or the birds? Can you see that it is ambiguous?
It is a dangling (or misplaced) participle.

Whenever we start a sentence with a participle phrase, the subject being described by the participle must
immediately follow.

Eating his lunch, Tony thought of me. -> The subject comes immediately after the phrase.

Rewrite each of the following sentences to get rid of any dangling participles.

1. Baked, not friend, Tom likes his potatoes.

è Tom likes his potatoes baked, not fried.

2. Eating her peanut butter sandwich, the bird attacked Mary.

3. Shocked by the news, the glass fell from my hand.

4. Covered with a thick layer of frosting, I enjoyed the cake.

5. Shouting about the exam results, the students were silent.

6. Walking on the hot road, the puddles were a relief.

7. Having eaten my food, the waitress brought the dessert menu.

8. After soaking in syrup, my mother ate the cherries.

9. Waiting for the bus, time seemed to stand still.

10. Leaking onto the floor, Suzan watched the overflowing syrup.

<VARY SENTENCE BEGINNINGS>

Iago is one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating characters. Iago is extremely cunning and
ambitious. He manipulates all those around him in order to get his own way. He pretends
to be loyal but he cares only for himself. Iago manipulates language to serve his purposes.
He manages to persuade Othello of Desdemona’s infidelity.
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That tree in the garden must be chopped down. It cuts out all the light. The tree makes all the front
rooms dark and depressing. It is dying as it has a terrible fungus. The tree could fall down in the
next storm. It would cause serious damage if it did. That tree must go, even though it is beautiful. It
is dangerous.

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Essay 3: Reflective Essay

Sample Essay #2: Rock Climbing as a Second Language

By Devon

There I was, hanging from the precipice, muscles trembling, fingers aching, sweat dripping onto my
spotter twenty feet below. He could see I was struggling, and shouted words of encouragement,
but my head was pounding too loudly to make out the words. During the initial ascent, I felt strong
and confident, though the intense scope of the route had begun to loosen my physical grip, as well
as my grip on reality. I made it to the final hold, exhausting every drop of energy, unable to fathom
lifting my arm again. The wall then became a towering mental blockade. I knew exactly where to
put my hand next, yet I still didn’t feel as if I had the physical means of doing so. I screamed and
shot my hand up in a final attempt to finish the climb. I was only hanging on by my fingertips and
sheer determination, nevertheless I had made it to the top. My belayer celebrated and lowered
me down. Weak and exhausted, I could barely unclip myself from the harness; however, mentally I
had never felt stronger.

It is during these experiences that the world falls away; all that is left is the rock face itself. I
become one with the wall, solely captivated by the placements of its holds and the complexity of
its challenge. Time ceases to exist.

Rock climbing is a second language to me. I grew up scaling the tallest trees I could find, desiring
the highest vantage point. Growing up in the uniformly flat state of Florida, I was limited in my
upward journey. Luckily, I rekindled my love for climbing in high school, and now cannot imagine
life without it. My passion for climbing is fueled by the adrenaline that pumps through my veins.

At first, I was an impatient climber who would try and solve the wall before me, making split-
second decisions. However, this strategy rapidly tired me out after beginning to climb. Clearly, this
method wasn’t going to get the job done; I had to change my mindset. Now, when I approach a
wall, I first draw the problem out in my mind, using my hands to examine the holds. Like a game of
chess, I lay out an intricate plan of attack. If I am completely perplexed by a wall, I converse with
other pro climbers to guide me towards the best route. Every time I interact with climbers better
than myself, I learn a new technique and create new bonds. Being part of the rock climbing
community has helped me develop my social skills.

The best things about climbing is that there is no clear-cut way to climb a wall, and that there is
always a new challenge. My climbing partners say that I take the most unorthodox routes when
climbing, but ironically they’re the most natural and comfortable paths for me. I get lost in the
walls and climb for hours, as time becomes irrelevant. I think of nothing else but reaching the last
hold and forget all of my worries. Even when my friends beg to go home from fatigue, I insist on
attempting another route. I don’t feel I’ve had a sufficient climbing session until my forearms are
pulsing and the skin on my fingertips are raw.

Patience, collaboration, and determination are all needed when climbing a wall, like in any field of
research. I no longer say I can’t do something, instead approaching challenges with the utmost
confidence. If one plan falls short, I reassess and approach the wall from another angle. I am
comfortable making decisions, even when I don’t know what the outcome may be. Through this
life-changing sport I have strengthened not only my body but also my mind, learning the beauty of
problem solving.

The author of the essay was admitted to Johns Hopkins University in 2019. Here is how the
admissions committee at Johns Hopkins responded to this essay:

Devon opens his essay with a story that is relatable to many: Struggling through a difficult activity
(rock climbing in this instance) yet feeling determined to finish. The author effectively expands
from this one experience to how his learning style has changed in the past few years. Through his
essay, we get a sense of Devon’s growth mindset and can envision him continuing to develop as a
student and individual once on our campus.
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A reflective essay is a type of writing in which the author explores their experiences in order to
lead to new personal interpretations and growth. It's an opportunity to take a life experience
and understand it in a new way by considering one's responses, feelings, and reactions to it, as
well as how it has been influential or developmental.

The purpose of a reflective essay is not just to narrate personal experiences, but to provide a vivid
description so the reader can walk away with a thorough understanding of what happened and how
the writer has been affected or changed. It's a deeply personal form of writing that encourages
introspection and personal analysis.

In essence, a reflective essay is about reflection. It allows the writer to look back on an experience and
gain deeper insights. This could involve understanding a personal growth moment, learning a new
skill, or processing a traumatic event. Reflective essays often appear in academic settings, where they
can help teachers understand and analyze their students' learning process.

Reflective essays often use the first-person narrative and incorporate descriptive language to convey
thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The structure of a reflective essay is typically similar to that of
other academic essays, consisting of an introduction with a thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a
conclusion. However, unlike many other essays, the focus of a reflective essay is often the writer's
emotional journey and personal growth.

I. Evoke a Vivid World

By this point you’ve got a fairly decent draft, right? Now it’s time to make your writing come alive.
Although your readers will be college admissions officers, your essay should not be written in a formal
academic register. The best reflective essays are written in vibrant, gripping prose that evokes a vivid
picture in the reader’s mind. Because admissions officers will be reading your essay within a dreary
administrative building, you’ll want to use evocative language to transport your readers into your
world. Bring that world to life by filling your essay with concrete description, punchy dialogue, and
one or two unexpected yet apt metaphors.
II. Construct Three-Dimensional Characters

Of equal importance, you’ll want to fill that world with three-dimensional characters. Describe people
in a manner that honors their complexity. Use description and dialogue to create a clear sense of your
characters’ internal states: thoughts, feelings, motivations, hesitations. Approach your prose as if it
were what one scholar calls “a medium for decrypting and unpacking, layer after layer, clause after
clause, the Russian-doll universe that people turn out to be.”1

Needless to say, the most important character in your essay will be you. One danger that
students face in writing essays is the temptation to round out their edges in order to make themselves
seem likable to their readers. “The mistake many would-be essayists and memoirists make,” observes
essayist Philip Lopate, “is to try so hard to be likable and nice, to fit in, that the reader, bored, begins
craving stronger stuff.” In order to avoid this mistake, Lopate recommends that essayists write about
themselves in the same way they would about a literary character. “You need to be able to see
yourself from the ceiling: to know, for instance, how you are coming across in social situations, and to
assess accurately when you are being charming and when you seem pushy, mousy, or ridiculous. [. . .]
The point is to begin to take inventory of yourself so that you can present that self to the reader as a
specific, legible character.” Ironically, admitting one or two of your foibles will not only render you
more interesting to your readers, but will also make you sound more honest, humble, and self-
reflective — and hence more likable.

III. Cultivate a Lively Narrative Voice

Finally, be aware of the fact that your writing style will be expressive of your personality. That
is, you’ll be communicating important information about who you are not only through what you
choose to write about, but also through how you choose to write about it. The words that you choose
to use — and the ways in which you arrange those words into sentences — will evoke an image of a
distinctive personality. If your writing is dull, then the persona conjured in the minds of your readers
will be dull; but if your writing is lively, then that persona will be lively too.

Use your writing style to foreground dimensions of your personality that you may be too humble to
name overtly: your observational intelligence, your playful sense of humor, your capacity for critical
self-reflection, and so on. If you are deliberate in your selection and arrangement of words — and if
you make an effort to cultivate a distinct narrative “voice” — then your readers will come away with a
better sense of who you are, and you will stand out in their minds as a more memorable and
compelling applicant.

< The Opening Line: Attention-Grabbing Hooks >

Some students make the mistake of opening with a general summary of their high school
experiences or their qualifications . “The most rewarding experiences of my life include my involvement
with community service and international travel.” Other students make the mistake of opening with a
paragraph that summarizes the focus of the essay as a whole. “In this essay,” they write, “I will explain
why my academic and extracurricular accomplishments make me a good candidate for Harvard
University.” But those openings are far too general to seize a reader’s attention. Because they’re bereft of
concrete description, the reader is not transported into the writer’s world. There is nothing for the reader
to imagine — nothing that makes the writer stand out.

1
André Aciman, “Proust’s Way?: An Exchange,” The New York Review of Books (Apr. 6, 2006).
IV. Use a Wide Variety of Sentences

To keep your reader awake and engaged, you’ll want to make sure that your essay contains sufficient
variation in sentence structure. Be aware of what your “go-to” sentence is and avoid using it too often.
Make an effort to utilize a wide variety of syntax structures. Fiction writers like Joyce Carol Oates are
masters of sentence variability. Notice how Oates uses a wide variety of sentence structures in the
opening paragraph of her personal essay “They All Just Went Away”:

I must have been a lonely child. Until the age of twelve or thirteen, my most intense,
happiest hours were spent tramping desolate fields, woods, and creek banks near my
family’s farmhouse in Millersport, New York. No one knew where I went. My father,
working most of the day at Harrison’s, a division of General Motors in Lockport, and at
other times preoccupied, would not have asked; if my mother asked, I might have
answered in a way that would deflect curiosity. I was an articulate, verbal child. Yet I
could not have explained what drew me to the abandoned houses, barns, silos,
corncribs. A hike of miles through fields of spiky grass, across outcroppings of shale as
steeply angled as stairs, was a lark if the reward was an empty house.2

è 1. First, Oates evokes a vivid world. Instead of merely stating that she liked to go on walks
through neighboring farms, Oates utilizes precise words and phrases — “spiky grass,”
“outcroppings of shale,” “barns, silos, corncribs” — to evoke a vivid image of her
surroundings.

è Second, Oates constructs herself as a three-dimensional character. She is not afraid to

portray her childhood self as a “lonely” tramp whose happiest moments were spent in
solitary exploration. Nor is she afraid to portray herself as having been moved by
subconscious motivations. She observes that she “could not have explained what drew me
to abandoned houses.”

è Last but surely not least, the paragraph above is characterized by remarkable variability in
its syntax. Notice how Oates begins the essay with a short sentence (7 words), follows with
a long sentence (29 words), then follows with another short sentence (6 words), and so on.
Yet if Oates uses a wide variety of sentence structures, she is also strategic about precisely
when she uses particular kinds of sentences. For example, she uses a long sentence to
describe the experience of going on a miles-long hike; yet she uses short sentences when
she wants to drive home a point. When writing your college essays, try to be similarly alert
to how the form of a sentence might help to reinforce its content.
è

2
Joyce Carol Oates, “They All Just Went Away,” The New Yorker (Oct. 16, 1995).
Step 1: The Opening Line: Attention-Grabbing Hooks

Some students make the mistake of opening with a general summary of their high school experiences
or their qualifications. “The most rewarding experiences of my life include my involvement with
community service and international travel.” Other students make the mistake of opening with a
paragraph that summarizes the focus of the essay as a whole. “In this essay,” they write, “I will explain
why my academic and extracurricular accomplishments make me a good candidate for Harvard
University.” But those openings are far too general to seize a reader’s attention. Because they’re
bereft of concrete description, the reader is not transported into the writer’s world. There is nothing
for the reader to imagine — nothing that makes the writer stand out.

I. Something Unusual or Surprising

One of the most effective techniques for capturing the interest of your reader is to open with a piece of
information about yourself that is unexpected or surprising: an uncommon experience, an unusual habit or
quirk, an odd obsession. Here’s how the professional essayist Annie Dillard opens her essay “Seeing”:

When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny
of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve
never been seized by it since. For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same
stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a
hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting
at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions.
After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was
greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who
would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never
lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until,
some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.3

è . First, she uses precise words to conjure a vivid world in the reader’s mind. For example,
instead of writing that she “placed” each penny under a “tree,” Dillard writes that she “cradled”
each penny at the “roots” of a “sycamore.” Second, she uses sound devices to create
pleasurable harmonies in the reader’s ear. Note the alliteration and assonance in phrases like
“precious penny,” “curious compulsion,” and “same stretch of sidewalk.”

3
Annie Dillard, “Seeing,” The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (New York: Harper Perennial, 1974), 16.
II. Something Said About You

A second technique for opening an essay is to quote a short snippet of dialogue. Opening with dialogue
can help to establish narrative tension. An example of this strategy can be seen in an essay written by the
Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Nye opens an essay called “Three Pokes of a Thistle” by
quoting something shocking that was written on her first-grade report card:

“She has the devil inside her,” said my first report card from first grade. I walked home
slowly, holding it out from my body, a thistle, a thorn, to my mother, who read the inside,
then the note on the back. She cried mightily, heaves of underground rivers. We stood
looking deep into the earth as water rushed by.4

III. A Seemingly Minor But Meaningful Event

Another great technique for opening an essay is to mine the mystery in the mundane. Louise Erdrich uses
this strategy when she writes a personal essay about how the little-known movie Z shaped the
development of her personality. Here is how Erdrich opens her essay:

Next to writing full time, the best job I ever had combined two passions — popcorn and
narrative. At fourteen, I was hired as a concessioner at the Gilles Theater in Wahpeton,
North Dakota. Behind a counter of black marbleized glass, I sold Dots, Red Hot Tamales,
Jujubes, Orange Crush, and, of course, hot buttered popcorn. My little stand was
surrounded by art deco mirrors, and my post, next to the machine itself, was bathed in an
aura of salt and butter. All of my sophomore year, I exuded a light nutty fragrance that
turned, on my coats and dresses, to the stale odor of mouse nests. The best thing about
that job was that, once I had wiped the counters, dismantled the machines, washed the
stainless steel parts, totaled up the take, and refilled the syrup canisters and wiped off the
soft drink machine, I could watch the show, free.5

IV. A Personal Obstacle

If you have struggled with a significant obstacle in your life, you might want to write about that. This can
be an especially effective route to take if you have thought long and hard about the obstacle, and if you’ve
been able to accept and grow from it.

4
Naomi Shihab Nye, “Three Pokes of a Thistle,” Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places (Columbia: Universityof South
Carolina Press, 1996), 26.
5
Louise Erdrich, “Z,” in David Rosenberg, ed., The Movie That Changed My Life (New York: Viking, 1991), 197.
SAMPLE

1st Paragraph: A Tension-Filled Scene

Use your opening paragraph to drop the reader into the middle of a concrete scene filled with tension.
Zoom in on a brief moment of the interaction when the tension is highest, and capture that moment
using vivid description. Your account of the tension should hook the interest of readers and make them
want to keep reading.1

Write this paragraph using the first-person point of view. Enable your readers to inhabit the shoes of the
person who you were at the time when the event(s) happened. Describe the feelings you were
experiencing in the moment. Use the present tense to generate a sense of immediacy.

In this paragraph, you’ll be demonstrating your skills in descriptive writing.

2nd Paragraph: Context

Use your second paragraph to zoom out and provide a broader context: who, what, where, when. When
and where did the event(s) take place? What led to the tension-filled situation? What kind of person
were you then?

Write this paragraph using the first-person point of view. But shift into the past tense to clarify that you
are now narrating from the perspective of who you are today.2

In this paragraph, you’ll be demonstrating your skills in informative writing.

3rd Paragraph: Narration

Now return to the scene in your first paragraph and develop it into a narrative. What happened next?
And after that? Tell a story using some of the techniques of narrative writing: foreshadowing, suspense,
dialogue, humor, and so on. Make sure to recount how the tension in your first paragraph gets resolved.
You will probably need to devote at least two or three paragraphs to this section of the essay.

In this paragraph, you’ll be demonstrating your skills in narrative writing.

4th Paragraph: Reflection

Use your last paragraphs to reflect back upon your experiences from the perspective of who you are today.
How did the experience push you to grow or change? What did you learn? Reflect back on your
experiences and elaborate upon any lessons learned — recognizing that the writing process itself may help
you to clarify such lessons. Devote at least two or three paragraphs to this section of the essay.

This section of your essay is where you demonstrate that you are a thoughtful human being who is capable
of reflecting back on his/her experience and learning something from it. Students typically find this section
to be the most difficult to write. But because colleges are looking for thoughtful and reflective students,
this is the most important part of a college application essay. So please devote extra time to it!

In this paragraph, you’ll be demonstrating your skills in reflective writing.

DESCRIPTIVE WRITING / SHOW WRITINGAdding sensory details helps enrich writing and enables your
reader to thoroughly experience the scene you are trying to describe. For each of the following
sentences at the bottom of this page, use the “telling” sentence as the topic for a paragraph that shows
the reader the subject of the sentence. Do not use the “telling” sentence anywhere in your “showing”
paragraph. Notice in these two examples how each writer has created a unique character and scene
based on the “telling” sentence.

Telling sentence: The man is old.

Showing paragraphs:

1. “The codger reaches out and caresses Halleck’s cheek with one twisted finger. His lips spread open
like a wound, showing a few tombstone stumps poking out of his gums. They are black and green. His
tongue squirms between them and then slides out to lick his grinning, cracked lips.”

– Stephen King, Thinner

2. “Limping along paths of crushed stone and tapping his cane as he takes each step, he races across
intricacies of sunlight and shadow spread before him on the dark garden floor like golden lace.
Alessandro Guilani is tall and unbent, and his buoyant white hair falls, floating around his head like
the white water in the curl of a wave.” – Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great

RATHER THAN “SHE WAS HAPPY,” TRY:

1. Using vivid verbs

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2. Using sensory details

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3. Figurative language
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4. Physical description

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Example 1
My fingers held onto the canoe paddle as we made our way across the lake. The waves were huge. I
could hardly hear Kristen at the front of my canoe and I was scared. I was soaking wet from all of the rain
and the water. I didn’t think we were going to make it to shore safely. I yelled to Kristen to paddle harder
and luckily, she did. Slowly we got closer to the shoreline. My arms were tired and I could barely move the
paddle. As canoe landed on the beach, I breathed a big sigh of relief. I could not believe we had made it to
shore.
è

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I watched the ocean waves

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I love pizza.
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