Janis wrote to the newsletter with a question regarding the use of gerunds. Here's her question:

But apparently, this isn't the full explanation, as Barbara Davies points out. "What you're actually referring to is a 'participial phrase'. IMO participial phrases at the start of sentences are fine as long as you don't overuse them to the point where they become irritating and you use them correctly.

"Take, for example: 'Hurrying around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood.'

"The sentence construction means that these two actions (hurrying and spreading) are happening at the same time ... which would be physically impossible. :)

"It would be better to say: 'After hurrying around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood.'

"Or 'Having hurried around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood.'

"Or 'He hurried around to the front of the truck and spread the map out on top of the hood.'"

Barbara Florio Graham also made clear the difference between a gerund and a participial phrase:

"Participles are used as adjectives, and they can end with either 'ing' or 'ed'." Examples:

Most of you, it seems, are of the opinion that the occasional use of a participial phrase is not a problem. Scotti Cohn writes: "I suppose you might encounter an editor who absolutely refuses to allow a gerund or participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence, but in my opinion, it's okay to do that to avoid repeating the personal pronoun. When doing so, it's important to pay attention so that you don't describe two actions taking place simultaneously when that isn't possible.

"For example, 'Taking the key out of his pocket, he opened the door,' suggests that he took the key out of his pocket and opened the door at the same time, which is not possible. They are two separate actions."

Stuart Aken is of a similar opinion: "Like so many 'rules' of writing, it is clearly spurious. Gerunds have been used as starters almost since the beginning of literature. There's no logical reason for this bar; it simply makes writing stilted and, in common with most such rules, makes no sense. Continuing the theme, I shall be writing such sentences when the structure and pace of the work require them."

Sheldon Goldfarb's response made me smile. "Worrying about gerunds, I raced to my keyboard...

"What an odd rule, forbidding gerunds at the beginning of sentences, and I've read lots of odd rules in Fowler, Strunk and White, etc. etc.

"I'm not surprised though that editors have come up with it; that's their job: to come up with rules to hamstring writers. When I published my novel, I had to struggle with the editors to get what I wanted to write published. You have to be strong with these people; that's the solution."

Jac Dowling also sees the lack of acceptance of gerunds by editors as an editorial problem. Jac wrote: "It seems that editors are becoming ever more pragmatic in their use of red and blue pencils! In my opinion, and I have opened with gerunds on several occasions, if the usage suits the mood and style -- go for it."

Vivian Ungar believes that participial phrases have their place in writing, but must be used sparingly. Vivian wrote: "When is it OK to begin a sentence with a gerund? When the sentence makes logical sense. Such a construction implies two events taking place simultaneously.

"Janis's example sentence is: 'Hurrying around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood.' This doesn't make a lot of sense, as the character would not be able to spread out the map on the hood while he was still hurrying. He would have to stop first, then spread out the map.

"On the other hand, one could write: 'Slipping on her new dress, she savored the feel of silk against her skin.' Not the greatest writing in the world, perhaps, but it makes sense. The putting on of the dress and the feeling of silk against skin occur simultaneously.

"While I don't think it's necessary to ban such sentences completely, a writer should regard them with suspicion and weed out as many as possible (just like adjectives). In Janis's case, a better solution might be not to describe every action her character makes. Experienced writers leave out certain details, knowing that the reader is capable of filling in the blanks.

"So the original paragraph: 'He pulled the truck over onto the shoulder, opened the door, and slid out of his seat. Hurrying around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood.' could be rewritten this way: 'He pulled over onto the shoulder, got out of the truck, and spread the map out on top of the hood.'

"The reader is aware that the character must open the door before getting out of the truck. There's no need to tell him so. My knowledge on this subject comes from John Gardner's excellent book, The Art of Fiction. He refers to such sentences as 'infinite-verb phrases.'"

Others amongst you, however, feel that gerunds or participial phrases or infinite-verb phrases should be avoided at all costs. Elisa wrote: "I believe that beginning sentences with gerunds is not technically incorrect, but we were always taught in school that it was a no-no because it was often done wrong. When you start with a gerund, you run the risk of writing an incomplete sentence. In addition, you also have to be careful that you choose an appropriate action pair. For example, in the example you used:

"'He pulled the truck over onto the shoulder, opened the door, and slid out of his seat. Hurrying around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood.' One might argue that you cannot hurry around to the front of the truck at the same time as spreading the map out on the top of the hood. This would be better constructed if instead of spreading the map out on the top of the hood, he unfolded the map.

"'He pulled the truck over onto the shoulder, opened the door, and slid out of his seat. Skidding around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood.' [Editor's grumpy note: Sorry, Elisa, but you can't open the map while skidding any more than you can while hurrying...]

"Hopefully this illustrates the need to pair the gerund with the intended actions and the risk our teachers did not want us taking as students."

Logan Judd is even more forthright in his views on gerunds. Logan writes: "It is true that gerunds should be avoided. The reason why is because they often do not make practical sense. To use one of the sentences from the article as an example, 'Hurrying around to the front of the truck, he spread the map out on top of the hood,' this sentence appears to be stating that he is hurrying around to the front of the truck and spreading the map on top of the hood at the same time.

"This is not to say that a gerund is a mortal sin. Whenever I come across some 'never ever do' advice from a 'how-to-write' book, I immediately pull a book off the shelves from some such-and-such author and find tons of examples blatantly contradicting that advice (for examples of gerunds aplenty, read The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan).

"I admit that I'm not a grammar whiz (I honestly did not know it was called a 'gerund' until I read this article, even though I knew beforehand that it was a poor technique); however, I believe that most, if not all gerunds, can be revised while still stating essentially the same thing." Logan goes on to revise several of the sentences to illustrate this, but for the sake of space I'm only publishing one of them here. "'He drove around to the front, and pulled up to the gate. Grabbing his ID papers off the seat, he thrust them through the open window.' Here is my revision: 'He drove around to the front and pulled up to the gate, then grabbed his ID papers off the seat and thrust them through the open window.'

In his revision, "the first and second sentence were combined using the conjunction 'then'. I changed "grabbing" to "grabbed," making this one smooth flow of action without gerunds or excessive 'he's.'

"The common theme here appears to be that gerunds can be solved by throwing in a conjunction and combining the sentence before the gerund with the gerund sentence to make one sentence. If this cannot be done, it may be best to consider changing the flow of events so that a gerund will no longer feel necessary."

Finally, Moira Allen weighed in with her advice on this tricky matter. She wrote: "First of all, as Barbara Florio Graham points out, these are not 'gerunds.' They are present participles, and specifically, the issue is about starting a sentence with a 'present participial phrase.'

"I haven't actually seen stern warnings about this, but then, I don't browse grammar books that often, unless they are somehow include vampires or pandas. So I think a better question to ask would be, 'what do you see in the books you read?' It seems to me that a participial phrase is a pretty common way to open a sentence.

"That being said, it also has a huge potential for misuse. The most common misuse of the opening participle is to lead with a participle that is not actually attached to the subject of the sentence. I see this problem quite often. For example:

"Here's another example:

So that's that sorted then. Whew!