Show+and+Tell+-+Participles

**Show Not Tell - Participles: Creating Participles to Make Your Writing Come Alive!**

__Introduction__

In this assignment, we will learn **what** a participle is and **why** they are helpful for writers.

First of all, have you ever wanted to describe to someone an exciting event in such detail that they could "see" it for themselves? If you've ever tried this, you probably already have some experience using participles. A participle is "a verbal (something that is based on a verb and therefore expresses action or a state of being) that is used as an adjective and most often ends in //-ing// or //-ed."//

An example of a participle would be: sprinting. A way I could use this in a sentence describing an event would be: "Sprinting, the rabbit took off into the bushes."

Here, sprinting is the participle. The word **sprinting** is used as an adjective to describe the noun **rabbit**.

So how are participles helpful in our writing?

They make our writing come alive by concisely **showing** the reader what is occuring rather than **telling** him or her.

For instance, taking my example above, I could have written two non-participle sentences to describe the same thing: "The rabbit took off into the bushes. He was in a hurry."

These two non-participle sentences convey the same message as "Sprinting, the rabbit took off into the bushes." But not only is it more wordy, it does not protray the actions that allow a reader to "see" what is going on. I can imagine many scenes of hurry which does not necessarily consist of sprinting. For instance, hurry may look like sweating, trembling, or darting and so forth. So the imagry conveyed to the reader through "**telling**" rather than "**showing**" is not as precise.

Daily Life:

Write an example sentence(s) of "**telling**" something you saw while you were in the hallway or at your lockers at school yesterday:

Write an example sentence of "**showing**" something you saw while you were in the hallway or at your lockers at school yesterday:

Next Page

Home