Introduction
A sentence fragment tries its best to be a sentence, but it
just can’t make it. It’s missing something.
Often, it’s missing a verb or part of a
verb string:
John working extra hard on his
hook shot lately.
Here, for instance, we’re missing an
auxiliary — has been, in this case, probably
— that would complete the verb string and
the sentence.
Incomplete Verb, Part Two
A sentence fragment tries its best to be a sentence, but it
just can’t make it. It’s missing something.
Often, it’s missing a verb or part
of a verb string:
Spending hours every day after
school and even on weekends.
This time we’re missing a whole verb.
“Spending” is a participle wanting to modify
something, but there is no subject-verb
relationship within the sentence.
Avoiding Sentence Fragments
Sometimes a sentence fragment can give you a great deal
of information, but it’s still not a complete sentence:
After the coach encouraged him so
much last year and he seemed to
improve with each passing game.
Here we have a subject-verb relationship —
in fact, we have two of them — but the
entire clause is subordinated by the
dependent word after. We have no
independent clause.
Avoiding Sentence Fragments
Be alert for strings of prepositional phrases that never get
around to establishing a subject-verb relationship:
Immediately after the founding of the
college and during those early years as
the predominant educational
institution in the American Midwest.
Again, be careful of sentences which give
their share of information but still don’t
contain a subject and verb.
Avoiding Sentence Fragments
If you still have problems identifying sentence fragments
and repairing them, it might be helpful to review the
material in the Guide to Grammar and Writing on
CLAUSES
PHRASES
(and the types of sentences in)
SENTENCE VARIETY
Avoiding Sentence Fragments
Now you never again will have trouble
with sentence fragments!
This PowerPoint presentation was created by
Charles Darling, PhD
Professor of English and Webmaster
Capital Community College
Hartford, Connecticut
copyright November 1999