Sentence Fragments Information Page:
Quick Tips: Sentence Fragments
Quick Tips: Sentence Fragments
- Quick Tips: Sentence Fragments
- Video Lesson: Sentence Fragments
- Helper Sheet: Sentence Fragments
Quick Tips: Sentence Fragments
Quick Tips: Sentence Fragments
Make sure each word group you have punctuated as a sentence contains a grammatically complete and independent thought that can stand alone as an acceptable sentence.
Incorrect (the second sentence is the fragment): Tests of the Shroud of Turin have produced some curious findings. For example. the pollen of forty-eight plants native to Europe and the Middle East.
Revised: Tests of the Shroud of Turin have produced some curious findings. For example, the cloth contains the pollen of forty-eight plants native to Europe and the Middle East.
Incorrect: Scientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption. Although caffeine does cause convulsions and death in certain animals.
Revised: Scientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption, although caffeine does cause convulsions and death in certain animals.
Work Cited
Center for Writing. “Misspellings.” 7 July 2015. 12 Common Errors: An Editing
Checklist. College of Liberal Arts; Regents of the University of Minnesota.
Available at http://writing.umn.edu/tww/grammar/common.html
Video Lesson: Sentence Fragments
Video Series: Sentence Fragments
https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-many-sentences-are-in-a-paragraph.html
Helper Sheet: Sentence Fragments
Lesson Transcript: Understanding, Finding, and Fixing Fragments
Instructor: Mary Firestone
Find out what sentence fragments are and how
to correct them. Learn the different ways sentence fragments can happen and how
they relate to phrases as well as dependent and independent clauses.
Definition of a Sentence Fragment
Sentence fragments are groups of words that
look like sentences, but [they] aren't. To be a sentence, groups of words need
to have at least one independent clause. An independent clause is
any group of words that contain both a subject and a verb and can stand on its
own. For example, 'I like cheeseburgers' is an independent clause.
Sentence fragments never have independent clauses, but instead are
dependent clauses or phrases. Fragments can masquerade as real sentences
because they begin with a capital letter and end with a period. If you read
them more closely, you'll see that fragments don't form a complete thought. A
sentence fragment is a little like having only half of the pieces to a puzzle.
Without all the pieces, you won't have the whole picture.
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Where to Find Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments usually appear before or
after the independent clauses to which they belong. For example:
When we got in the car. We rolled down the
windows.
'When we got in the car' is a sentence
fragment and a dependent clause. It clearly belongs to the independent clause
that follows it and should be rewritten like this:
When we got in the car, we rolled down the
windows.
Or like this:
We rolled down the windows when we got in the
car.
Subordinators
The sentence fragment 'When we got in the
car' also has the subordinator 'when'. Some other examples of subordinators are:
'after', 'although', 'before', 'if', 'since', 'until', 'when', 'where',
'while', and 'why'. Clauses with subordinators can be called either dependent
clauses or subordinating clauses, but when those clauses appear at the
beginning of a sentence, they should be followed by a comma.
Fragment Phrases
Phrases are groups of words that are missing
a subject or verb, or both. Phrases can also masquerade as sentences, like
dependent clauses can. Here are some examples.
Here's an example missing subject and verb:
From morning until night.
This fragment can be made a complete sentence
by changing it to:
I worked from morning until night.
Adding 'I' as the subject and 'worked' as the
verb corrects this fragment and makes it an independent clause and a complete
thought.
Here's an example of a missing subject:
Start after the weekend.
This fragment can be made a complete sentence
by changing it to:
Classes start after the weekend.
Adding the subject 'classes' corrects this
fragment and makes it an independent clause and a complete thought.
Finally, here's an example of a missing verb:
Some girls in the class.
This fragment can be changed to:
Some girls in the class study together.
Adding the verb 'study' corrects this
fragment and makes it an independent clause and a complete thought.
Fragment Temptations
Certain words and expressions make it easy to
fall into the sentence fragment habit. Some of these words include 'also', 'for
example', 'and', 'but', 'for instance', 'mainly', 'or', and 'that'. Here's how
they appear in a sentence:
Harris claims that men and women have
different ideas about dating. For example, that men should pay for dinner on a
date.
How Many Sentences Are in a Paragraph? - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com
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