# The invention is described in detail below (by) referring to the attached drawings [dangling participle]



## Kay Champs

"The invention is described in detail below (by) referring to the attached drawings."


In this sentence, I wonder "referring" is a dangling participle. The invention is described by a writer and the writer refers to the drawings as he/she describes the invention. Therefore, "is described" and "referring" share the same subject. Is it still a dangling particple?


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## Copyright

You have a problem because you have two different locations for the explanation: 1) information below, and 2) information in attached drawings. You need to figure out *where *the information is and *what *it is. The way you've described it, it seems like a video, with a writer describing something on camera while referring to drawings he or she is holding or displaying.


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## perpend

The original sentence makes sense to me, Kay. Is it a quote? I don't see any dangling.

Please list your source, as it was, without additions by you.


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## Kay Champs

Thank you, Copyright and perpend, for comments.

The original sentence is an English translation I made of a passage very often appearing in a description of an invention to be filed with the patent office in a desired country. After a summary of an invention, the description becomes specific following that sentence. 

The locations for the explanation, as Copyright mentioned, are naturally in the text and in the drawings. I do not understand how this has to do with a dangling participle, if any.


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## Thomas Tompion

Kay Champs said:


> "The invention is described in detail below (by) referring to the attached drawings."
> 
> 
> In this sentence, I wonder "referring" is a dangling participle. The invention is described by a writer and the writer refers to the drawings as he/she describes the invention. Therefore, "is described" and "referring" share the same subject. Is it still a dangling particple?


Hello Kay,

Yes, I'd certainly be very unhappy about that participle.

_By referring_, and even plain simple _referring_, most naturally are associated (I don't want to use the word _refer_ again) with the subject of the sentence, and the invention is not doing any referring.

What I suspect this writer is trying to say is _The invention is illustrated in the drawings below_.

This sort of error occurs frequently in the writing of people who like to choose non-personal subjects for sentences; they forget they are limiting themselves grammatically by their choice.

And yes, this sort of misattributed participle is often called a _dangling_ participle:  _Walking to the station this morning my handbag fell onto the pavement_.


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## Kay Champs

Thank you Tom for comments.


> the locations for the explanation are naturally in the text and in the drawings. I do not understand how this has to do with a dangling participle, if any.


This contains obviously a dangling participle because the subject is "my bag" whereas it is "I" who am walking.
However, in my sentence, "the invention" does not do any describing, it is a writer who does that, and reference to the drawings is made by the very writer who does the writing.


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## Kay Champs

Sorry, I made a mistake in citation. 

I should have included 
"_Walking to the station this morning my handbag fell onto the pavement"
in the balloon._


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## Thomas Tompion

Kay Champs said:


> Sorry, I made a mistake in citation.
> 
> I should have included
> "_Walking to the station this morning my handbag fell onto the pavement"
> in the balloon._


Hello Kay,

I get the impression that you do not accept that in your sentence, _The invention is described in detail below by referring to the attached drawings,  _the suggestion is that the invention is referring to the attached drawings.  I'm not clear how you can see the error in the handbag sentence but not in your own.  Maybe it's a matter of word order: would you be happy with _My handbag fell onto the pavement walking to the station this morning_?  I wouldn't be.  Your sentence seems to me to contain a classic misattributed (i.e. dangling) participle.


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## Kay Champs

What the writer is trying to say is not "The invention is illustrated in the drawings below. " but the point is rather that the description of the invention will be more specific below and the description will be made with reference to the drawings, although this has nothing to do with the dangling of a pariticiple.
In addition, in technical writing having to do with technologies, a passive voice is preferred or often unavoidable.


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## Kay Champs

Sorry, I saw your last thread after I've given mine.
I do not think it's a matter of word order. As I mentioned, it's a matter of whether the subject is shared by the actions expressed.


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## Thomas Tompion

Kay Champs said:


> Sorry, I saw your last thread after I've given mine.
> I do not think it's a matter of word order. As I mentioned, it's a matter of whether the subject is shared by the actions expressed.


I don't understand what you mean by the subject sharing the actions expressed.

Do you think that inventions refer to drawings?  If you don't, and I would share your doubts - it is the readers who are being invited to refer to the attached drawings, not the invention - then you need to rewrite your sentence.  The sentence I suggested may not express what you wish to say, but, in my view, you need to find a way of saying what you want which avoids the elementary mistake in the sentence in the OP.


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## Kay Champs

I get the impression that the above "invention" sentence sounds funny to Tom and Copyright any way.
Reading Tom's comments "By referring, and even plain simple referring, most naturally are associated (I don't want to use the word refer again) with the subject of the sentence",  then "referring to" would be taken as dangling.


(by "whether the subject is shared by the actions expressed", I meant "whether the subject of a sentence is shared by actions expressed by the verb and the participle.)

Then, would it make sense when it is rewritten to read:
"The invention is described in detail below with reference to the attached drawings."  ?


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## Thomas Tompion

> Then, would it make sense when it is rewritten to read:
> "The invention is described in detail below with reference to the attached drawings." ?


It would probably make sense in that people would understand what you were trying to say, but it would not be good English.  The vague, all-purpose, _with reference to_ doesn't get you out of your problem.  In such cases I used to advise my students to think very carefully about what they wished to say; that usually caused them to write more grammatically.


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## Kay Champs

While this may not be good English, I could not for the moment think of any other alternative sentence, so until I do, this would have to do.
Thanks Tom.


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## wandle

> "The invention is described in detail below (by) referring to the attached drawings."


Certainly the original involves a dangling or hanging participle. Grammatically, the participle 'referring' (with or without 'by') is attached to the subject of the sentence, namely 'the invention'.  It says that the invention is referring to the drawings. However, as a matter of fact, the invention, being the device _described in _the patent document, cannot be referring to anything in that document. In terms of sense, therefore the participle is hanging: it is disconnected from the sentence.
To avoid this and to preserve the passive voice, you could say:
'A detailed description of the invention is given below, reference being made to the attached drawings.'


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## suzi br

There is certainly something wrong with the original sentence. 
It needs an overhaul for clarity.

How about:
The invention is described in detail below, supported by the  attached drawings.


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## wandle

suzi br said:


> The invention is described in detail below, supported by the  attached drawings.


Unfortunately, this now says that the invention is supported by the drawings.


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## Thomas Tompion

I think we need to be careful about rewriting the sentence.  I don't think it's supposed to be something we do.  I'm glad to have had some support in my campaign to get Kay to change it.


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## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> I think we need to be careful about rewriting the sentence.  I don't think it's supposed to be something we do.


I hesitated over my final suggestion for that reason. However, (a) it would be difficult to convey a solution otherwise, and (b) where the original poster was consulting on a specific point and was not requesting a rewrite or proofreading, it does not seem (to me, at least) contrary to the spirit of the rules to respond in this way.


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## Thomas Tompion

Hi Wandle,

I put in that comment to remind Kay that we weren't supposed to rewrite the sentence for her.  Sometimes we have non-natives who come here for free proof-reading.  I don't think Kay is doing that at all, but others mustn't get the impression that they can take advantage of us in this way.


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## wandle

Well, I suppose it's a question of interpretation whether the alternatives suggested in #15 and #16 breach the rules. That is up to the moderators to decide. Personally, I would hope that where the original poster does not intend to get round the rules, enough leeway would be allowed to permit the most helpful solution to be offered.


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## modulus

My two cents: the invention is described below by means of referencing the attached drawing.


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## Kay Champs

Tank you all of you for giving reasons why the sentence involves a pending participle. Now I understand that although the sentence is in passive voice, since the subject for "be described" is "the invention" as Tom and wandle say ( though the actor (?) is the writer ), who or what is "referring to"  is also "the invention." Thus, I now understand that what matter is not the actor but the subject when considering the question of pending participle.


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## Thomas Tompion

Kay Champs said:


> Tank you all of you for giving reasons why the sentence involves a pending participle. Now I understand that although the sentence is in passive voice, since the subject for "be described" is "the invention" as Tom and wandle say ( though the actor (?) is the writer ), who or what is "referring to" is also "the invention." Thus, I now understand that what matter is not the actor but the subject when considering the question of pending participle.



Good, Kay.  When I said the subject, I meant, as you say, the grammatical subject, the subject of the sentence.  Participles not clearly assigned to a noun tend to be taken to refer to the subject of a sentence, hence the problem.


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## PaulQ

A detailed description of the invention is contained/available in the attached drawings [below]. (can you have *attached *and *below* together, are they not either one or the other?)


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## modulus

PaulQ said:


> A detailed description of the invention is contained/available in the attached drawings [below]. (can you have *attached *and *below* together, are they not either one or the other?)



Hi PaulQ,

The description is in one document, say the main body of the document. The drawings are numbered and in another document, say the attached document.
The main body describes the invention and in that description there are references to numbered drawings in the attached document.

Now put the following sentence in passive form:
I describe the invention in the main body--i.e. below--by referencing drawings from the attached document.


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## Kay Champs

Well, there seems to be a misunderstanding, which may be attributable to the way my sentence is written. 


> A detailed description of the invention is contained/available in the attached drawings [below].




As I said, a detailed description of the invention now starts here; some drawings are attached to the description (text) to help understand the description.


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## JulianStuart

It is the _description_ (of the invention) that does the referring.  Unfortunately the word "description" is not present in the original sentence, only a statement that it exists. "Below is a description of the invention which refers to the attached drawings". While grammatically there remains some ambiguity about what the "which" refers to, logic indicates it would be the description not the invention.  If that's not acceptable, I think we need two sentences! "A detailed description of the invention is presented below. The description refers to drawings presented in the attached document/attachment/annex"


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## Forero

I really don't know what Kay means to say.

The invention does not refer to the drawings, so perhaps the detail refers to the drawings. Or maybe the description, or its author, refers to the drawings. Maybe the drawings describe the detail. Or are we, the readers, meant to refer to the drawings?

In this last case, I might either mention the readers somehow or else use some sort of imperative form like "Refer to the attached drawings",  "See the description and drawings below" or "Enclosed please find ...". In the other cases, we probably need a noun on which to anchor the participle.


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## JulianStuart

In a typical patent file (in which such descriptions of inventions may be found - I have a few to my name  ) the text mentions _(i.e., "refers" to) _ Figure 1 , Figure 2 (or Drawing 1 or Drawing 2) etc., but the figures themselves are not present in the text.  In fact, some patent listing sites have separate downloadable files for the text of a patent and its corresponding figures. In our current example, we are dealing with the particular section of text called "the description of the invention".  This description has references (such as "refer to drawing 5") to drawings that are in the attached document.  The author did not like to have two sentences to describe this state of affairs and created the "offending" sentence.  Hence my suggestion for two sentences.


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## Kay Champs

Hi, Forero,


Following the sentence in question, the writer describing an invention says in the document "as illustrated in Fig. 3," for example, as the description goes on in order to refer the reader to that drawing (the document being called "specification," which is a  description of aninvention in the form of text, mostly accompanied by drawings attached thereto).


If you google by entering say,
<"described in detail below  *  to the attached drawings" >,
you get hundreds of thousands of sites, mostly related to patents and therefore unfortunately many of them related to descriptions of inventions by Japanese.


There are therefore so many cases of dangling particles going on in the specifications, as Julian may know.


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## Kay Champs

The wording to google in this case might as well be:


< "described  *  to the attached drawings"  john >


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## JulianStuart

Kay Champs said:


> There are therefore so many cases of dangling particles going on in the specifications, as Julian may know.



Your sentence in the first post is somewhat unusual for a legal, in this case a patent, document because it is grammatically flawed, and therefore open to interpretation - an undesirable characteristic for such a document!  For that reason also, specifically in describing the invention and its claims, the occurrence of any grammatically flawed language is uncommon (unless written by a poor lawyer) although the price we sometimes pay is readability!  This complicated wording, yes, but poor grammar and dangling or misplaced participles and modifiers, not likely !


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## Kay Champs

Googling with < "described * to the attached drawings" john > will get you millions of cases, with restrictions to the sites including the name John.
So without name limitations, the number of hits will further increase. 
Of course there are many Johns who are not native speakers of English and 
I'm not saying that the number justifies the use of such expressions but there are just so many cases.


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## Kay Champs

Sorry, Julian, I saw your last post after I've given mine.
OK, now I know that at least that particular wording should be avoided.


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## Kay Champs

Now I found, looking through the sites I get from the mentioned entry  that including "John" in the entered words does not always work as I intended, that is, to limit at least one of the inventors to John but it turned out there are cases where for example the Examiner examining that particular case of application for patent was named John , with the inventors being Japanese.


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## perpend

_--Sorry, Hadn't read both pages of entries. My comments were redundant--
_
Now I've read both pages in more detail. I don't think this particular suggestion has been included, but Julian started the train of thought about using "description" has the subject.

So maybe:
-- The invention's detailed description, referring to the attached drawings, is below

I don't really like the two commas, but maybe this works:
-- The invention's detailed description is below referring to the attached drawings

That sounds odd, maybe this:
-- The invention's detailed description is below and refers to the attached drawings

And maybe I'm thinking too much about this.


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## Kay Champs

Hi Perpend, thank you for your suggestions.

Meantime, I found some counterparts in some of the specifications filed by IBM as follows:

*The present invention will be explained with reference to the attached drawings.


*Embodiment (s) of the invention will now be described by way of example only, and with reference to the attached drawings.


*Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail hereinbelow with reference to the attached drawings. 

These examples are basically similar to my another version including "with reference to" given in my earlier post in this thread which could not get good rating by Tom. I still cannot get over the feeling that this wording is typical in the field of patent (though it has nothing to do with pending participle and hence may be irrelevant). Don't you agree, Julian?


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## JulianStuart

I think the "with reference to the attached drawings" works well in most situations, as earlier posts had suggested!


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## perpend

Kay Champs said:


> *The present invention will be explained with reference to the attached drawings.
> 
> *Embodiment (s) of the invention will now be described by way of example only, and with reference to the attached drawings.
> 
> *Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail hereinbelow with reference to the attached drawings.



Which one do you think embodies your desired translation, Kay?

None of those sound viable to me, for what it's worth.


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## Kay Champs

Perpend, all of the three sound basically the same in structure and all sounds ok to me but since perpend, a native, says none of them sound viable, that perhaps would be the way it sounds to most English speaking people, though there are quite a few natives of English use this typical wording in the specification.

Thank you everyone. At least I now know this does not sound ok to most speakers of English.


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## wandle

> *The present invention will be explained with reference to the attached drawings.
> *Embodiment (s) of the invention will now be described by way of example only, and with reference to the attached drawings.
> *Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail hereinbelow with reference to the attached drawings.


Each of these sentences is perfectly valid and correct. The main verb in each case ('will be explained', 'will be described') is a verb of description. It is normal for descriptions to refer to particular things.
The idea of reference is here expressed by the adverbial phrase 'with reference to the attached drawings'. This usage is just as correct as the adverbial phrase beginning with 'by' in my own preceding sentence. (The idea of reference is here expressed by the adverbial phrase 'with reference to the attached drawings'.)
In the examples quoted, there is no hanging participle and the adverbial phrase is connected directly to the verb of description.


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## Kay Champs

wandle, I'm glad to have your support. I could not come up with any better alternative. Besides, as I mentioned, expressions with basically similar structure are used by many inventors of U.S.  or British nationality (which of course dose not always mean their mother tongue is English).


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## JulianStuart

perpend said:


> Which one do you think embodies your desired translation, Kay?
> 
> None of those sound viable to me, for what it's worth.





wandle said:


> Each of these sentences is perfectly valid and correct. The main verb in each case ('will be explained', 'will be described') is a verb of description. It is normal for descriptions to refer to particular things.
> The idea of reference is here expressed by the adverbial phrase 'with reference to the attached drawings'. This usage is just as correct as the adverbial phrase beginning with 'by' in my own preceding sentence. (The idea of reference is here expressed by the adverbial phrase 'with reference to the attached drawings'.)
> In the examples quoted, there is no hanging participle and the adverbial phrase is connected directly to the verb of description.



I have to say I agree with wandle that those three sentences are fine for their purpose. Perpend may dispike them because they are not "normal" English in the sense that they are part if a legal document with specific requirements.  In each case it is saying both restrictively and informationally that the description is to be taken as complete only when the attached documents are present and those are the ones referred to.  If the drawings were not attached, the claims, embodiments etc would be incomplete, open to alternative interpretations  and possibly invalid. It also simply informs the reader of the location of the drawings.


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## modulus

Kay Champs said:


> wandle, I'm glad to have your support.


I support your original sentence. The solution I offered in post #22 is artificial, but it does sidestep objections that were raised about the grammar.

I call my solution 'artificial' because it is an attempt to solve a non-existing problem.


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## Kay Champs

Modulus, thank you for your support. My original sentence you support is the one in post #12 reading "The invention is described in detail below with reference to the attached drawings", right? I wish to be sure since this sentence is often used in my translation.


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## modulus

That sentence, in particular, seems perfectly fine to me.


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## Kay Champs

Thank you, modulus, for your confirmation.


While "described with reference to" is used very often in patent specifications, "described referring to" is also used, though they may sound odd, as in:


"This problem will be described referring to Figs. 2 and 3."   (IBM) 


"The operation of the exposure control section 14 is to be described referring to Figures 3-8."  (IBM)


I accept, however, that these are not acceptable.


FYI, you  can search for descriptions of inventions (specifications) with limitation in terms of inventors, who usually provide the description of their invention, and manufacturers, although this does not perfectly exclude the documents described by non-English-speakers, at: 
http://www.wipo.int/patentscope/search/en/structuredSearch.jsf 
if you are interested.


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## perpend

Kay, please take no offense, but the thread is getting long, which is no problem. Do you have a sufficient solution? If not, and it's a legal document, you might consider consulting a professional translation service to make sure/certain, that it's correct, if it's going to be written in thousands of documents. Just some friendly advice.


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## Kay Champs

Perpend, you are right. I agree the thread has maybe contiuned a little too long and so I should close it now with this post. Comments given by all of you, including perpend's, have solved my problem, for which I thank you.


I'm using this Forum solely to improve my understanding of English. In Forum, I refer to the pertinent register, which happens to be descriptions of inventions, when it is necessary to provide the context in which a phrase or wording in question is used because language is so delicate.


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