Participle clauses

Why do we use participle clauses?

By mastering participle clauses, you’ll learn to express ideas more efficiently, eliminate unnecessary words, and make your writing sound more natural and professional. They help us to write more efficiently, formally and to avoid repetition. Participle clauses will help you to make your sentences shorter and more fluid. 

Participle clauses also improve your literary style as they are common in academic writing and literature. Finally, they will help you avoid using too many conjunctions like because, after, while, as, when.

To begin understanding participle clauses, see how they replace dependent clauses and describe cause and effect, reasons and event order.:

Cause and effect (like because or since):

• Knowing he was late, he ran to the bus stop. (= Because he knew he was late...)

Time and Sequence (like after, before, while):

• Opening the door, she found a surprise gift. (= When she opened the door...)

Conditions (like if):

• Used properly, this technique can improve your writing. (= If it is used properly...)

Contrasts (like although or even though):

• Being rich, he never showed off. (= Although he was rich...)

Result (like so or which is why):

• Annoyed by the noise, she left the room. (= She was annoyed, so she left...)

Four main types of participle clauses

Participle clauses are a way to make sentences more concise and sophisticated by reducing clauses while maintaining meaning. They use participles (present, past, or perfect) instead of full verb phrases.

Present participle Clauses (-ing form)

• Used for active actions happening at the same time.

• For example: She walked down the street, listening to music. OR Listening to music, she walked down the street.

Past participle clauses (-ed, irregular past participles)

• Used for passive meaning or completed actions.

• For example: Shocked by the news, he sat down. (= He was shocked...)

Perfect participle clauses (Having + past participle)

• Used to show an action happened before another.

• For example: Having finished his work, he went home. (= After he had finished...)

Preposition + continuous form clauses (Preposition + ING)

• Used to show cause, reason, or circumstances more precisely.

• For example: Before leaving, he checked his bag. (= Before he left...)

Common mistakes

Incorrect subject-verb-agreement is a common mistake when creating participle clauses. This means that the subject and the verb are not correctly written, mainly due to the advance nature of the sentence. It is important to ensure that the subject of the verb in the main clause as well as the participle clause are the same. 

Let's look at an example. First we have the original sentence:

Because the smartphone was found on the ground it was handed in to the police.

Below are two versions of rewriting the sentence using participle clauses. Note how the first has two different subjects: the phone on the dependent clause and I in the independent clause. The second example, however, correct this mistake.

          (subject = the phone)                             (subject = I)

❌ Found on the ground, I handed the smartphone to the police.

 (subject = the phone)                             (subject = the phone)

✅ Found on the ground, the smartphone was handed to the police.

Practice Example

Rewrite the sentences and create participle clauses using the highlighted words.

For example:

• Because she had finished her work, she took a break. 

• Answer: Having finished her work, she took a break.

1. Because she was worried about the exam, she studied all night.

2. As he didn’t know the answer, he stayed silent.

3. After he had eaten dinner, he went for a walk.