Sentence Fragments
Sentences are the most important units in writing. That sounds obvious, but think about the times that you've seen sentence fragments and run-on sentences. When you include run-on sentences (sometimes called fused sentences or comma splices) or unintended fragments in your writing, your writing takes on a very unprofessional appearance.
Here are some examples of fragments:
a. The excitement generated by the speaker's visit.
b. Waiting in the apartment for our guests to come.
c. Because of the serious unrest in the capital.
d. Although the Ambassador was a fluent Portuguese speaker.
Remember that a complete sentence includes four things:
Sentence a. is a fragment because it lacks a verb. Be careful, there is a word that looks like a verb! What about generated? Sorry, generated does not function as a verb here. It introduces the phrase that describes the excitement.
The other three sentences are actually dependent clauses. Here are some ways to fix these:
b. Waiting in the apartment for our guests to come we peeled the potatoes.
c. The army was mobilized because of the serious unrest in the capital.
d. Although the Ambassador was a fluent Portuguese speaker, he continued to rely on an interpreter for his first year in Brazil.
Creating Fragments with Subordinators
You may have heard someone call dependent clauses "subordinate" clauses. "Because" and "although" are sometimes called "subordinators" because they can make a perfectly good sentence into a subordinate clause. This is what happend to d. above. A dependent or subordinate clause cannot stand on its own. It needs an independent clause to make it a complete sentence. The following are all independent clauses:
b. ...we peeled the potatoes.
c. The army was mobilized ...
d. ...he continued to rely on an interpreter for his first year in Brazil.
So remember, you always need the four elements listed above to make your sentences clear and understandable.
Practice #2
© David Tillyer