Drawing

Question

What does "drawing" mean in the following sentence?Drawing upon that experience I want to explore what makes a writer tend toward one narrative medium rather than another.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Drawing upon = Using; taking knowledge or experience from.

Innovati · Answer

To Draw can be used as a verb, meaning 'to pull'

You can 'draw water from a well' which means to take water out of a well.

You can also 'draw a bath' which means to fill a tub with water for a bath.

so 'Drawing on experience' is a little more complex. If your 'experience' is like a well, the more experience you have the more water is in the well. If you have more water you can draw/take more from that well. If you have more experience you can draw/take more learning from it.

To paraphrase 'drawing from exprience' we could also say:

Drawing upon that experience I want to explore…

Because of my past experience I want to explore…

I learned from my past experience that I want to explore…

I hope this helps you, take care friend!

Anonymous · Answer

The word "drawing" is an English verb form. The basic verb is "(to) draw," and grammatically there are various forms to this basic verb. For example:

I draw. (present tense)

I am drawing. (another form of the present tense)

I have drawn. (a past tense form)

I drew. (past tense)

And so forth.

However, there are other ways to use verb forms. In the sentence you listed, the word "drawing" is derived from the basic verb "draw"--the technical term for this "-ing" form of the verb is the present participle. In this sentence, the group of words, "Drawing upon that experience", although it has verb-related origins, functions as a noun. For example, in the sentence: Drawing upon that experience is what you should do. The group of words "Drawing upon that experience" functions as a noun, the subject of the sentence. Diagrammatically the sentence is analyzed as follows: [Drawing upon that experience] is [what you should do]. This is technically the same as a sentence like: Experience is the key to success.

The sentence you listed is difficult to analyze grammatically because it is elliptical, that is, words are left out and assumed from the context: Drawing upon that experience (has been valuable to me and now, using that experience,) I want to explore what makes a writer tend toward a narrative medium rather than another. The words in parentheses have been left out.

Drawing

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