Technical Writing and Terminal Modification

Because of the work of Francis Christensen, sentence-terminal modification was emphasized in college composition from about 1965 to 1980. The structures emphasized included absolutes, restating and summarizing appositives, participial phrases, non-participial adjective phrases, adjectival clauses and prepositional phrases, and adverbial clauses and phrases. This emphasis, however, had little effect on technical writing, in spite of the practical utility of terminal modifiers. This article, therefore, explains the terminal modifiers and exemplifies them in the context of technical writing; it then examines the texts of representative technical reports to determine the extent to which terminal modifiers are currently used. The findings—generally that the report writers do not take full advantage of terminal modification—indicate that increased attention to terminal modifiers, especially the absolute, the summarizing appositive, and the non-participial adjective phrase, would significantly increase the options for effective expression by technical writers.