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Along with
run-on sentences, sentence fragments are some of the most
frequent errors committed by student writers.
Undoubtedly, you will hear your English professor go on
and on about how to avoid these. Knowing how to
avoid sentence fragments is probably one of the more
drastic improvements you can make in your writing.
The Rule
A sentence
fragment, by definition, is when you have a group of words
that cannot stand alone as a sentence doing just that,
trying to stand alone as a sentence. There is not
enough information yet, and something is needed to turn
what you have into a complete sentence.
See the
page on Run-On Sentences to get a
definition of the difference between independent and
dependent clauses.
How to
Recognize Fragments
One of the
most basic ways to discover whether or not something is a
fragment is to determine the following:
1. Does the
clause have a subject? If there isn't a subject,
then you have a sentence fragment.
Example: Running fast.
You have a
verb and an adverb here. The subjects of sentences
are always nouns. In order for this to be a
sentence, we need to know is who or what is running fast.
2. Does the
clause have a verb? If there isn't a verb, then you
have a sentence fragment.
Example:
The big, ferocious
cheetah.
You have a
subject (cheetah) and two adjectives (big, ferocious), but
no verb. What we need is to have the cheetah do
something. Hmmm...
Sentence: The big, ferocious
cheetah was running fast.
This is a
sentence because it has both a subject and a verb.
All sentences in English must have
at least a subject and a verb.
Possible
Solutions
1. Combine
the identified fragment with a nearby clause or sentence.
Problem:
Because cooking is hard. I go out to eat every
night.
Clearly,
"Because cooking is hard" is a sentence fragment. We
can fox this by combining the two sentences.
Solution:
Because cooking is
hard, I go out to eat every night.
2. Simply
turn the fragment into a sentence.
Problem: After getting out of
bed. (This is a fragment because there is no subject.
Who is getting out of bed?)
Solution: After getting out
of bed, I realized that I hadn't turned the clock ahead
one hour.
Practice
The
following is a short quiz to test your knowledge of
how to recognize sentence fragments. Please indicate whether
or not the following sentences are correct or are
fragments:
1. Cats down the street.
2. Talking to him for a few
hours.
3. Seeing that I was very
tired, my mother let me sleep.
4. Before I started college
and bought all of my books.
5. Oversleeping by about an
hour or so.
For
Answers,
Click Here.
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