ABSTRACT
I dwell on this example at length because it typifies a current trend in style, whereby the vague word using is allowed to stand for other more precise words and to take on the functions of various parts of speech. It is thus common to read of findings using a word-recognition paradigm instead of findings obtained in [with] a word-recognition paradigm; of subjects who smelled the stimuli using an odorant delivery system when in fact the stimuli were delivered by such a system; of the results in a study using a cued recall task instead of the results of the cued recall task; of the limiting factor using this technique instead of the limitation of this technique; and so forth. In every one of these instances, the participle using functions as an illogical modifier, for findings do not use paradigms; stimuli do not use delivery systems, nor do subjects use such systems to smell stimuli either; neither results nor studies use tasks; and factors do not use techniques.
