Here is the sentence:
Dangling his legs over the water, Tommy sat
on the pier and cried. Infused with his great sadness, the tears hit the
waves and attracted Marina, a beautiful mermaid. Popping out of the ocean
as sleek as a seal, Tommy gasped at the sight. While Marina’s tail flopped
against the wood, which was long, scaly, and metallic blue, she asked poor
Tommy the reason for his pain. Tommy explained that he had lost the surfing
championship, which included a scholarship to college.
Assessing his set as clumsy and inelegant, not
a single compliment was received from the judges.
After Tommy bemoaned his ineptitude on a surfboard,
Marina made a proposal: She would turn him into a merman with the grace
and athleticism of a dolphin! Wielding ancient ocean secrets with a snap
of her fingers, a metallic green tail replaced Tommy’s legs! Diving into
the waves, the tail propelled Tommy through the strong surf. Ecstatic about
his new abilities, the training and advice Marina offered went unheeded.
Refusing to use conditioner, for example, the sun and salt water soon damaged
Tommy’s hair, which became dry and brittle. A dangerous and foolhardy activity,
Tommy also insisted on head bumping the Great White sharks that he encountered.
Putting straws up his nose and barking like a walrus did not make Tommy
popular when he had dinner with Neptune, Marina’s father. After thoughtlessly
scrambling endangered sea turtle eggs for breakfast, an apology had to be
made not only to Marina but also to the grieving reptile mother. One day
out on a swim, Tommy drank a root beer and tossed the empty plastic bottle
in the water. Polluting the ocean so carelessly was the last clam shell
for Marina. With an angry snap of her fingers, she replaced Tommy’s tail
with two human legs. Sinking under the waves, Tommy’s legs finally kicked
him to the surface where he gulped a much needed breath of air. Saying a
curt goodbye, Marina’s tail slapped the surface dismissively as she dove
into the ocean depths. While swimming the mile back to shore as a regular
human being, Tommy regretted the gift that he had squandered.
Assessing his set as clumsy and inelegant, a participle phrase, should describe the judges, but its distance and awkward passive voice phrasing make this modifier unclear and misplaced. Nice work!
To fix the problem, you should revise the sentence like this: Assessing his set as clumsy and inelegant, the judges did not give Tommy a single compliment.