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The sentences below appeared in papers written by students. Act as their editor, marking a C if the sentences in the group are all complete and an F if any of the sentences in the group is a fragment. Could you tell these writers why the fragments are incomplete sentences?

____ 1. Then I attended Morris Junior High. A junior high that was a bad experience.

____ 2. The scene was filled with beauty. Such as the sun sending its brilliant rays to the earth and the leaves of various shades of red, yellow, and brown moving slowly in the wind.

____ 3. He talked for fifty minutes without taking his eyes off his notes. Like other teachers in that department, he did not encourage students' questions.

____ 4. Within each group, a wide range of features to choose from. It was difficult to distinguish between them.

____ 5. A few of the less serious fellows would go into a bar for a steak dinner and a few glasses of beer. After this meal, they were ready for anything.

____ 6. It can be really embarrassing to be so emotional. Especially when you are on your first date, you feel that you should be in control.

____ 7. The magazine has a reputation for a sophisticated, prestigious, and elite group of readers. Although that is a value judgment and in circumstances not a true premise.

____ 8. In the seventh grade every young boy goes out for football. To prove to himself and his parents that he is a man.

____ 9. She opened the door and let us into her home. Not realizing at the time that we would never enter that door in her home again.

____10. As Christmas grows near, I find myself looking back into my childhood days at fun-filled times of snowball fights. To think about this makes me happy.

____11. Making up his mind quickly. Jim ordered two dozen red roses for his wife. Hoping she would accept his apology.

____12. They were all having a good time. Until one of Joe's oldest and best friends had a little too much to drink.

____13. Although it only attained a speed of about twelve miles an hour. My old rowboat with its three-horsepower motor seemed like a high-speed job to me.

____14. With my brother standing by my side, I reached for the pot handle. Tilting the pot way too much caused the boiling water to spill.

____15. The small, one-story houses are all the same size and style. With no difference except the color.

____16. Being a friend of mine like he was when we first joined the soccer team. Together we learned a lot.
Go to Answers

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Sentence Fragments Exercise 1 - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University

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The sentences below appeared in papers written by students. Act as their editor, marking a C if the sentences in the group are all complete and an F if any of the sentences in the group is a fragment. Could you tell these writers why the fragments are incomplete sentences?

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Summary:
This handout provides an overview and examples of sentence fragments.

Fragments are incomplete sentences. Usually, fragments are pieces of sentences that have become disconnected from the main clause. One of the easiest ways to correct them is to remove the period between the fragment and the main clause. Other kinds of punctuation may be needed for the newly combined sentence.

Below are some examples with the fragments shown in red. Punctuation and/or words added to make corrections are highlighted in . Notice that the fragment is frequently a dependent clause or long phrase that follows the main clause.

You may have noticed that newspaper and magazine journalists often use a dependent clause as a separate sentence when it follows clearly from the preceding main clause, as in the last example above. This is a conventional journalistic practice, often used for emphasis. For academic writing and other more formal writing situations, however, you should avoid such journalistic fragment sentences.

Some fragments are not clearly pieces of sentences that have been left unattached to the main clause; they are written as main clauses but lack a subject or main verb.
No main verb

Fragment: A story with deep thoughts and emotions.
Possible Revisions:

Direct object: She told a story with deep thoughts and emotions.

Appositive: Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a story with deep thoughts and emotions, has impressed critics for decades.

Fragment: Toys of all kinds thrown everywhere.
Possible Revisions:

Complete verb: Toys of all kinds were thrown everywhere.

Direct object: They found toys of all kinds thrown everywhere.

Fragment: A record of accomplishment beginning when you were first hired.
Possible Revisions:

Direct object: I've noticed a record of accomplishment beginning when you were first hired

Main verb: A record of accomplishment began when you were first hired.

No Subject

Fragment: With the ultimate effect of all advertising is to sell the product.
Possible Revisions:
Remove preposition: The ultimate effect of all advertising is to sell the product.

Fragment: By paying too much attention to polls can make a political leader unwilling to propose innovative policies.
Possible Revisions:
Remove preposition: Paying too much attention to polls can make a political leader unwilling to propose innovative policies.

Fragment: For doing freelance work for a competitor got Phil fired.
Possible Revisions:

Remove preposition: Doing freelance work for a competitor got Phil fired.

Rearrange: Phil got fired for doing freelance work for a competitor.

These last three examples of fragments with no subjects are also known as mixed constructions, that is, sentences constructed out of mixed parts. They start one way (often with a long prepositional phrase) but end with a regular predicate. Usually the object of the preposition (often a gerund, as in the last two examples) is intended as the subject of the sentence, so removing the preposition at the beginning is usually the easiest way to edit such errors.

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University of North Carolina Writing Center: What is a Sentence Fragment?

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University of North Carolina Writing Center: What is a Sentence Fragment?

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The Writing Center * University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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What this handout is about

If instructors have ever returned your papers with "frag," "S.F.," "R.O.," or "run-on" written in the margin, you may find this handout useful. It will help you locate and correct sentence fragments and run-ons.

The basics

Before we get to the problems and how to fix them, let's take a minute to review some information that is so basic you've probably forgotten it.

What is a complete sentence? A complete sentence is not merely a group of words with a capital letter at the beginning and a period or question mark at the end. A complete sentence has three components:

1. a subject (the actor in the sentence)

2. a predicate (the verb or action), and

3. a complete thought (it can stand alone and make sense-it's independent).

Some sentences can be very short, with only two or three words expressing a complete thought, like this:

They waited.

This sentence has a subject (They) and a verb (waited), and it expresses a complete thought. We can understand the idea completely with just those two words, so again, it's independent-an independent clause. But independent clauses (i.e., complete sentences) can be expanded to contain a lot more information, like this:

They waited for the bus all morning.

They waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday.

Wishing they'd brought their umbrella, they waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday.

Wishing they'd brought their umbrella and dreaming of their nice warm bed, they waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday, determined to make it to class for their test.

As your sentences grow more complicated, it gets harder to spot and stay focused on the basic elements of a complete sentence, but if you look carefully at the examples above, you'll see that the main thought is still that they waited-one main subject and one main verb. No matter how long or short the other sentence parts are, none of them can stand alone and make sense.

Being able to find the main subject, the main verb, and the complete thought is the first trick to learn for identifying fragments and run-ons.

Sentence fragments

A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence. Some fragments are incomplete because they lack either a subject or a verb, or both. The fragments that most students have trouble with, however, are dependent clauses-they have a subject and a verb, so they look like complete sentences, but they don't express a complete thought. They're called "dependent" because they can't stand on their own (just like some people you might know who are SO dependent!). Look at these dependent clauses. They're just begging for more information to make the thoughts complete:

Because their car was in the shop (...What did they do?)

After the rain stops (...What then?)

When you finally take the test (...What will happen?)

Since you asked (...Will you get the answer?)

If you want to go with me (...What should you do?)

Does each of these examples have a subject? Yes. Does each have a verb? Yes. So what makes the thought incomplete? It's the first word (Because, After, When, Since, If). These words belong to a special class of words called subordinators or subordinating conjunctions. If you know something about subordinating conjunctions, you can probably eliminate 90% of your fragments.
First, you need to know that subordinating conjunctions do three things:

1. join two sentences together

2. make one of the sentences dependent on the other for a complete thought (make one a dependent clause)

3. indicate a logical relationship

Second, you need to recognize the subordinators when you see them. Here is a list of common subordinating conjunctions and the relationships they indicate:

Cause / Effect: because, since, so that

Comparison / Contrast: although, even though, though, whereas, while

Place & Manner: how, however, where, wherever

Possibility / Conditions: if, whether, unless

Relation: that, which, who

Time: after, as, before, since, when, whenever, while, until

Third, you need to know that the subordinator (and the whole dependent clause) doesn't have to be at the beginning of the sentence. The dependent clause and the independent clause can switch places, but the whole clause moves as one big chunk. Look at how these clauses switched places in the sentence:

Because their car was in the shop, they took the bus.

They took the bus because their car was in the shop.

Finally, you need to know that every dependent clause needs to be attached to an independent clause (remember, the independent clause can stand on its own).

How do you find and fix your fragments? Remember the basics: subject, verb, and complete thought. If you can recognize those things, you're halfway there. Then, scan your sentences for subordinating conjunctions. If you find one, first identify the whole chunk of the dependent clause (the subject and verb that go with the subordinator), and then make sure they're attached to an independent clause.

They took the bus. (Independent clause. So far, all is well!)

Because their car was in the shop. (Dependent clause all by itself. Uh oh! Fragment!)

They took the bus because their car was in the shop.

Run-ons

These are also called fused sentences. You are making a run-on when you put two complete sentences (a subject and its predicate and another subject and its predicate) together in one sentence without separating them properly. Here's an example of a run-on:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus it is very garlicky.

This one sentence actually contains two complete sentences. But in the rush to get that idea out, I made it into one incorrect sentence. Luckily, there are many ways to correct this run-on sentence.

You could use a semicolon:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus; it is very garlicky.

You could use a comma and a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so):

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus, for it is very garlicky. -OR- My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus, and it is very garlicky.

You could use a subordinating conjunction (see above):

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus because it is very garlicky. -OR- Because it is so garlicky, my favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus.

You could make it into two separate sentences with a period in between:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus. It is very garlicky.

You could use an em-dash (a long dash) for emphasis:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus-it is very garlicky.

NOTE: You CANNOT simply add a comma between the two sentences, or you'll end up with what's called a " comma splice." Here's an example of a comma splice:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus, it is very garlicky.

You can fix a comma splice the same way you fix a run-on-either change the punctuation or add a conjunction. The good news is that writers tend to be either comma splicers or run-on artists, but almost never both. Which one are you? If you have particular trouble with comma splices, try looking at our handout on commas.

Finding run-ons

As you can see, fixing run-ons is pretty easy once you see them-but how do you find out if a sentence is a run-on if you aren't sure? Rei R. Noguchi, in his book Grammar and the Teaching of Writing, recommends two methods for testing your sentences. Try these two tests:

1. Turn your sentences into yes/no questions.

2. Turn your sentences into tag questions (sentences that end with a questioning phrase at the very end-look at our examples below).

These are two things that nearly everyone can do easily if the sentence is not a run-on, but they become next to impossible if it is.

Look at the following sentence:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus.

If you turn it into a question that someone could answer with a yes or no, it looks like this:

Is my favorite Mediterranean spread hummus?

If you turn it into a tag question, it looks like this:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus, isn't it?

The first sentence is complete and not a run-on, because our test worked.

Now, look again at the original run-on sentence:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus it is very garlicky.

The yes/no question can only be made with each separate thought, not the sentence as a whole:

Is my favorite Mediterranean spread hummus? Is it very garlicky?

But not:

Is my favorite Mediterranean spread hummus is it very garlicky?

The tag question can also only be made with each separate thought, rather than the whole:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus, isn't it? It's very garlicky, isn't it?

But never:

My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus it is very garlicky, isn't it?

Unlike the complete sentence, the run-on sentence doesn't pass these tests. When you try to turn the run-on sentence into a single question, you immediately see that the sentence has more than one complete concept. Make sure you try both tests with each of your problem sentences, because you may trick yourself by just putting a tag on the last part and not noticing that it doesn't work on the first. Some people might not notice that "My favorite Mediterranean spread is hummus it is very garlicky isn't it?" is wrong, but most people will spot the yes/no question problem right away.

Every once in a while, you or your instructor will see a really long sentence and think it's a run-on when it isn't. Really long sentences can be tiring but not necessarily wrong-just make sure that yours aren't wrong by using the tests above.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Hacker, Diana, and Nancy Sommers. 2014. A Writer's Reference, 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin's Handbook, 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's.

Noguchi, Rei. 1991. Grammar and the Teaching of Writing: Limits and Possibilities. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers, 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Fragments and Run-ons - The Writing Center * University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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This handout will help you locate and correct sentence fragments and run-ons.

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Sentence Fragments | Ashford Writing Center

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A sentence fragment is a group of words that looks like a sentence, but actually isn't a complete sentence. Sentence fragments are usually missing a subject or verb, or they do not express a complete thought. While it may be punctuated to look like a complete sentence, a fragment cannot stand on its own.

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Grammar and Punctuation: Sentence Fragments - Aims Community College

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Fragment: A fragment is a group of words that is written as a sentence but does not conform to one or more of the rules listed above. In other words, a fragment is missing a subject or a noun or is not a complete thought.

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A fragment is an incomplete sentence. It cannot stand alone because it is not an independent clause. It either lacks a subject, a complete verb (or both), or it might be a complete sentence but because it begins with a subordinating word (such as "when" or "because") it does not express a complete thought. It is a dependent clause -dependent on something else to complete its meaning. Let's look at some examples.

I went to the store yesterday.

The subject is "I" and the verb is "went," and the sentence expresses a complete and independent thought. Look at what happens when we add a subordinating word:

We need something else to complete the thought-we don't know what happened when we went to the store yesterday. Now we have a fragment. To fix this kind of fragment, we must add it to another complete sentence.

When I went to the store yesterday, I bought some milk.

Another type of fragment occurs with "after thoughts" (usually a dependent clause or a phrase that adds detail) that need to be joined to the previous sentence to complete its meaning. For example:

We are really going to have to hurry. Because we overslept and missed the bus.

The emphasized words finish the thought of the first sentence, so they need to be joined to the first sentence.

We are really going to have to hurry because we overslept and missed the bus.

Notice here that a dependent clause added at the end of a sentence is not preceded by a comma.

In addition, some fragments are caused by verbal and prepositional phrases:

Running down the street.

This verbal phrase is a fragment because it lacks a subject and a complete verb. It can be fixed two ways. One would be to add the subject and the missing portion of the complete verb:

A shaggy dog was running down the street.

Alternatively, this phrase can be added to an independent clause as an introductory phrase:

Running down the street, two little girls chased their shaggy dog.

Also, in addition to the above, there a few commonly used phrases that can very easily be fragments if not joined to an independent clause. When proofreading your work, look for the following " red flag " words:

"Because" - We were late to class this morning. Because we overslept and missed the bus.

"Especially" - I hate going shopping at the mall. Especially during the holiday season.

"Such as" - Freshmen tend to have a lot of problems adjusting to college life. Such as managing their time, maintaining a budget, and balancing work with play.

"Which is" - My roommate has more clothes than anyone I have ever met. Which is why there is no room in the closet for any of my clothes.

In all of the examples above, the red flag words in bold signal the beginning of a dependent clause that cannot stand alone. Thus, these dependent clauses are fragments that need to be connected to the main clause that precedes them.

We were late to class this morning because we overslept and missed the bus.

I hate going shopping at the mall, especially during the holiday season.

Freshmen tend to have a lot of problems adjusting to college life, such as managing their time, maintaining a budget, and balancing work with play.

My roommate has more clothes than anyone I have ever met, which is why there is no room in the closet for any of my clothes.

More Tips for Detecting Fragments

Many fragments occur when phrases provide a lot of information but do not contain a proper subject and verb relationship. Below are some examples:
A series of prepositional phrases:
After the game but before the other team went home.

REVISED:
After the game but before the other team went home, the student body threw a celebration party for both teams because it was such an excellent competition.

Notice here we added an independent clause to tell what happened.
A verbal phrase that provides description:
Staying late after work every day in hopes of meeting the deadline.
REVISED:
Staying late after work every day in hopes of meeting the deadline, Sheila existed on leftover pizza and stale donuts because she didn't have time to eat a proper dinner.

Again, we added an independent clause to tell what happened.
Nearly a sentence but missing part of the complete verb:
Some of the students acting in the play this spring.

Remember that "-ing" verbs must have an auxiliary verb with it to function as the verb of the sentence. Without the auxiliary, it is just a verbal (which usually functions as an adjective).

REVISED: Some of the students were acting in the play this spring.

Here we simply added the missing auxiliary of the verb.

ANOTHER REVISON: Some of the students acting in the play this spring were from Spain.

Remember, fragments often have nothing to do with sentence length, but instead are fragments because they are missing something to make them complete sentences. For example, the following sentence is long, but it is a fragment:

Staying up until 3 in the morning to finish papers, eating cheap fast food, spending hours in the library looking for books to finish a project, enjoying cold pizza for breakfast, trying to remember everything the professor said about World War I in time for the test, ignoring friends, and leaving messages from parents unreturned during finals week.

REVISED: Staying up until 3 in the morning to finish papers, eating cheap fast food, spending hours in the library looking for books to finish a project, enjoying cold pizza for breakfast, trying to remember everything the professor said about World War I in time for the test, ignoring friends, and leaving messages from parents unreturned are just a few of my bad habits during finals week.

Resources

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A fragment is an incomplete sentence. It cannot stand alone because it is not an independent clause. It either lacks a subject, a complete verb (or both), or it might be a complete sentence but because it begins with a subordinating word (such as "when" or "because") it does not express a complete thought.

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Also includes practice quizzes

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- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians, David here along with my cousin Beth who also happens to be a teacher. Say hello to the people Beth. - [Voiceover] Hi people. - [Voiceover] So today we are going to talk about sentence fragments, and Beth you cover these in classes that you teach. Could you tell me please, what is a sentence fragment? - [Voiceover] Great. A sentence fragment is when a student writes a sentence and they think it's a sentence, but it's one that tells maybe what happens, but doesn't include who, or it might include who but doesn't tell what happens. - [Voiceover] So sentence fragments don't tell the whole story. The way I would put it, is that a fragment is a piece of a sentence that cannot stand on its own, but nevertheless, incorrectly ends with a period. So the whole story, for instance, would be a fragment. This is a fragment. It could be a sentence but it's missing something. Beth, what is it missing, what is the whole story missing? - [Voiceover] Well we've got a subject but we don't have what we would call a predicate, in other words, so we're giving a subject, but we're not telling what happens to that subject. - [Voiceover] All right, so, the whole story began 10 years ago. And now we've got our subject here, the whole story, and now we've given it a predicate. Similarly, if we just had this predicate, and we just said it began ten years ago, oh, that's not enough to be a sentence either, that's also a fragment. Because now we've got a predicate but no subject. - [Voiceover] Right, we're telling about something but we don't know what. - [Voiceover] So in order to be a sentence, you need to have both a subject and a predicate. So you need to have a thing, like a noun, or a pronoun, and then you have to have something happen to that noun or pronoun, or something performed by that noun our pronoun. Right so, like the pancakes, period, is not a sentence. But the pancakes were delicious, is. - [Voiceover] So you've got a part that names, that's your subject, and then you've got the part that finishes the thought, that's your predicate. - [Voiceover] Let's look at another example. All right, what about because of the snowstorm? Is that a sentence, Beth? - [Voiceover] Nope. - [Voiceover] Why not? - [Voiceover] Well you don't tell what happened because of that snowstorm. - [Voiceover] So this is what we call, not even a, I mean it's not even a dependent clause, right? It, this thing doesn't have, doesn't really have a subject or a verb. It's really just a prepositional phrase. So because of the snowstorm something could happen, but we don't know what that is, so, because of the snowstorm, we stayed home from school. So we've got this sentence here, this independent clause, right. We stayed home from school. And that's a subject and a predicate. And if it were just stayed home from school, period, that wouldn't be a sentence. And if it were just we, period, that also wouldn't be a sentence. And if it were just because of the snowstorm, period, that wouldn't be a sentence. It doesn't have enough support to stand on its own. But all together, because of the snowstorm, comma, we stayed home from school, period. That is a sentence. So in order to make sure that you're building sentences you have to make sure that what you've got is a subject and a predicate. You gotta have a subject and a verb, put 'em together, slap on a period, you've got a sentence. - [Voiceover] You've got some good sentences there David. - [Voiceover] You can learn anything. David out. - [Voiceover] And Beth out.

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Recognizing fragments (video) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Exercise : Sentence Fragments Exercise 2

These paragraphs need proofreading for possible fragments. Use the space below each paragraph for revising.

1. How can a person find patriotism in a local night club? Well, it did not take me too long. About four weeks ago in a little night club in Louisville, Kentucky, a couple of my friends, Rick and Lon, the duo who were providing the entertainment that night for the club.

2. For the past twenty years, the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan has been measuring the level of Americans' trust and confidence in their politicians and quasi-political trust and confidence in their political institutions and their leaders. "Political" being all levels of government, and "quasi-political" churches, labor unions, large professional/business associations, educational institutions, and the like. The result is that a very sharp decline has taken place every year since 1964.

3. For 200 years Americans believed in better jobs, better homes, a better life for one's children. This confidence no longer exists. Polls now indicate that fewer Americans feel they are better off today than they were five years ago. A public-opinion analysis group has found that large numbers of Americans, at some times and in some places, see themselves as lower on the ladder. Adding worse living conditions and anticipation of further decline over the next five years.

4. Well, in looking at the picture at the left you see an old lady. She has a very funny look on her face. As if she's lonely and just wants to be left alone. She also looks as if she has seen a lot and experienced lots of things.

5. A president is an appointed leader. Someone who is a decision maker in the executive branch of our government. This doesn't necessarily mean that the person the people elect is capable. Just hopefully assumes. Assumes through his past record as a politician, over the years' buildup of experience and handling situations.

Go to Answers

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Sentence Fragments Exercise 2 // Purdue Writing Lab

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Definition of a Sentence Fragment

Sentence fragments are groups of words that look like sentences, but 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.

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.

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what is a sentence fragment? - definition & examples - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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What is a Sentence Fragment? - Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Sentence fragments are groups of words that look like sentences, but 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.

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Sentence Fragments: How to Find and Repair them

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Introduction: This page contains some basic information about sentence structure (syntax) and sentence types. It also includes examples of common sentence problems in written English. ESL students who understand the information on this page and follow the advice have a better chance of writing well. [ Note to teachers/advanced students]

Linguists have problems in agreeing how to define the word Definition: sentence. For this web page, sentence will be taken to mean: ' a sequence of words whose first word starts with a capital letter and whose last word is followed by an end punctuation mark (period/full stop or question mark or exclamation mark)'. On the basis of this definition, some of the sentences written by ESL students (indeed by all writers) will be correct, and other sentences will be problematic. Good readers (English teachers, for example!) can quickly see the difference between a correct and a problematic sentence.

Subject/predicate: All sentences are about something or someone. The something or someone that the sentence is about is called the subject of the sentence. In the following sentences the subjects are shown in red. Note how the subject is often, but not always, the first thing in the sentence.

John often comes late to class.
My friend and I both have a dog named Spot.

Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in 2004.

The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down to make way for a new supermarket.

Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue tail feathers.

The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks excellent English.

On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.

Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the students are well-prepared.

Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.

The predicate contains information about the someone or something that is the subject. The example sentences above are shown again, this time with the predicate marked in green.

John often comes late to class.
My friend and I both have a dog named Spot.

Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in 2004.

The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down to make way for a new supermarket.

Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue tail feathers.

The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks excellent English.

On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.

Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the students are well-prepared.

Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.

Do a quiz on the subject and predicate.

Simple subject/predicate: As you can see from the example sentences above both the subject and the predicate can consist of many words. The simple subject is the main word in the subject, and the simple predicate is the main word in the predicate. The simple subject is always a noun/pronoun and the simple predicate is always a verb.

In the following sentences the simple subject is shown in red and the simple predicate is shown in green.

My ESL teacher speaks a little Russian.

The young girl with the long black hair fell from her bike yesterday in heavy rain.

At the back of the line in the cafeteria yesterday was a large brown dog with a yellow collar around its neck!

My friend and I are going on holiday together this year.

Your mother or your father must come to the meeting.

Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue tail feathers.

From the last three examples sentences above you will notice that the simple subjects and simple predicates can be more than one word.

Advice: To write strong, clear sentences you must know who or what you are writing about (subject) and what you want to say about them or it (predicate). Your writing will be more interesting if the subject is not the first thing in every sentence you write.
Do a quiz to identify simple subjects and predicates.

Sentence types: One way to categorize sentences is by the clauses they contain. (A clause is a part of a sentence containing a subject and a predicate.) Here are the 4 sentence types:

Simple: Contains a single, independent clause.

I don't like dogs.

Our school basketball team lost their last game of the season 75-68.

The old hotel opposite the bus station in the center of the town is probably going to be knocked down at the end of next year.

Compound: Contains two independent clauses that are joined by a coordinating conjunction. (The most common coordinating conjunctions are: . Remember: boas.)

I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats.

You can write on paper, or you can use a computer.

A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the students was injured.

Complex: Contains an independent clause plus one or more dependent clauses. (A dependent clause starts with a subordinating conjunction. Examples: that, because, while, although, where, if.)

I don't like dogs that bark at me when I go past.

She did my homework, while her father cooked dinner.

You can write on paper, although a computer is better if you want to correct mistakes easily.

Note: A dependent clause standing alone without an independent clause is called a fragment sentence - see below.

Compound-complex: Contains 3 or more clauses (of which at least two are independent and one is dependent).

I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats because they make her sneeze.

You can write on paper, but using a computer is better as you can easily correct your mistakes.

A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the students was injured, although many of them were in classrooms at the top of the building.

Advice: Writing that contains mostly short, simple sentences can be uninteresting or even irritating to read. Writing that consists of mostly long, complex sentences is usually difficult to read. Good writers, therefore, use a variety of sentence types. They also occasionally start complex (or compound-complex) sentences with the dependent clause and not the independent clause. In the following examples the dependent clause is shown in red:

Although it was raining, we decided to go fishing.

If it doesn't rain soon, the river will dry out.

Because the road was icy and the driver was going too fast, he was unable to brake in time when a fox ran into the road in front of him.

Note: Sentences can also be categorized according to their function. [ More]

Note: Independent clauses are also called main clauses. Dependent clauses are also called subordinate clauses.

Do a quiz to identify clause types. Do a quiz to identify sentence types.

Problematic 'sentences': To write a correct sentence, you need to have a good understanding of what a sentence is. Students who don't have this understanding, or don't take care, often include problem sentences in their writing. Native English speakers are just as likely to write problem sentences as ESL students. There are three main types of problem sentence:

Run-on sentences: These are two sentences that the writer has not separated with an end punctuation mark, or has not joined with a conjunction. (Click the following run-ons to see where they should be separated into two sentences.)

I went to Paris in the vacation it is the most beautiful place I have ever visited.

It's never too late to learn to swim you never know when you may fall from a boat.

If you're going to the shops can you buy me some eggs and flour I want to make a cake.

I like our new math teacher, she always explains the work very clearly.

He was late to school again, his bus got caught in heavy traffic.

Advice: It is helpful to read your written work aloud. When you speak, you will make natural pauses to mark the end of your sentences or clauses. If there is no corresponding end punctuation mark in your writing, you can be almost certain that you have written a run-on sentence.

Sentence fragments: Fragment sentences are unfinished sentences, i.e. they don't contain a complete idea. A common fragment sentence in student writing is a dependent clause standing alone without an independent clause. In the each of the following examples the fragment is the second 'sentence', shown in red:

I don't think I'm going to get a good grade. Because I didn't study.

She got angry and shouted at the teacher. Which wasn't a very good idea.

He watched TV for an hour and then went to bed. After falling asleep on the sofa.

She got up and ran out of the library. Slamming the door behind her.

I have to write a report on Albert Einstein. The famous scientist who left Europe to live in the USA.

After riding my bike without problems for over a year, the chain broke. 40 kilometers from my house!

Advice: If your 'sentence' is a dependent clause, or it doesn't contain both a subject and a predicate, then it is not a proper sentence. You can often detect fragments if you read your writing backwards sentence by sentence, i.e. from the last sentence to the first one. You can usually correct a fragment by connecting it to the sentence before or after it.

Good writers, who have a full understanding of the sentence, occasionally choose to write a sentence fragment. So you may see sentence fragments in the fiction or even some of the non-fiction you read. As an ESL student, however, you should avoid fragments (except when writing your own creative stories).

Rambling sentences: A rambling sentence is a sentence made up of many clauses, often connected by a coordinating conjunction such as and, or, so.

John usually gets up before 7 o'clock, but yesterday his alarm clock did not ring, so he was still asleep when his boss called him at 10.30 to ask where he was and tell him that he would lose his job if he was late again.

Although the blue whale has been protected for over 30 years and its numbers are increasing, especially in the North Pacific, where whale hunting has been banned, it is still at risk of extinction as its habitat is being polluted by waste from oil tankers and its main food, the plankton, is being killed off by harmful rays from the sun, which can penetrate the earth's atmosphere because there is a huge hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.

Advice: A rambling sentence is quite easy to spot. You have almost certainly written one if your sentence contains more than 3 or 4 conjunctions. If you read the sentence aloud and run out of breath before reaching the end of it, you have written a rambling sentence. If your sentence stretches over many lines of writing, you have certainly written a rambling sentence and most probably a run-on sentence too.

Unlike run-ons or fragments, rambling sentences are not wrong, but they are tiresome for the reader and one of the signs of a poor writer. You should avoid them.

Do a quiz to identify problematic sentences.

General advice: If you are not sure whether you have written a good, correct sentence, ask your teacher! And remember: The more you read in English, the better a writer you will become. This is because reading good writing provides you with models of English sentence structure that will have a positive influence on your own written work.

Note: Good writing consists not only of a string of varied, correctly-structured sentences. The sentences must also lead from one to the next so that the text is cohesive and the writer's ideas are coherent. For information on these two important concepts, go to the Language words for non-language teachers page and click on Cohesion.

Click to see the collected writing advice from this page.

There are links to more sentence identification and sentence building exercises on the Writing Index of this website.

Click for a summative test of the information on this page.

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Introduction: This page contains some basic information about sentence structure (syntax) and sentence types. It also includes examples of common sentence problems in written English. ESL students who understand the information on this page and follow the advice have a better chance of writing well.

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Walden University's Writing Center provides a number of services to support students' writing at all stages of their education. We offer one-on-one paper reviews, webinars, modules, podcasts, form and style reviews, web-based instructional content on writing and APA style, and much more.