125 Using Gerunds (English)

Home >> Grammar Style Guide >> Using Gerunds

Using Gerunds

A gerund is a verb ending in "ing." A gerund is itself also a verb, but may be used infrequently as a noun; such as, playing in the sun makes me tired. In this example, playing is the subject of the example independent clause, and makes is the verb. It's important to note that as a verb, gerunds introduce a parenthetic clause to the sentence, but as a noun they do not. They may be followed by a prepositional phrase (such as, in the sun in the previous example) when used as a noun, but rarely if ever are they followed by a parenthetic expression when used as a noun.

Uses

Gerunds provide a very valuable function that would otherwise cause confusion. Gerunds provide a sentence with the action of an object. That is to say, gerunds introduce the clause that describes what an object of the sentence is doing.
When a writer includes a gerund mid-sentence, it is almost always non-restrictive and therefore preceded by a comma.
For example, I type this, thinking it is easy to grasp.
In this example sentence, the verb think is turned into a gerund, so the rest of the sentence after the comma does not restrict who is thinking—it’s still just me—but it does add a description of what happened while I was typing; therefore, it is non-restrictive .

Other Uses

Many writers who delve into the world of instructions and processes will find an established industry standard of titles beginning with gerunds, such as Using Gerunds above.
The reason is that the reader can quickly surmise what value the text they are about to read will provide.