Some fragments are incomplete because they lack either a subject or a verb, or both. Sentence fragmentsĪ sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence. No matter how long or short the other sentence parts are, none of them can stand alone and make sense.īeing 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. 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.Īs 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. Wishing they’d brought their umbrella, they waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday. They waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday. But independent clauses (i.e., complete sentences) can be expanded to contain a lot more information, like this: We can understand the idea completely with just those two words, so again, it’s independent-an independent clause. This sentence has a subject (They) and a verb (waited), and it expresses a complete thought. Some sentences can be very short, with only two or three words expressing a complete thought, like this: a complete thought (it can stand alone and make sense-it’s independent).A complete sentence has three components: 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. The basicsīefore 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. It will help you locate and correct sentence fragments and run-ons. 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. Now we know what the initial clause ("Even though.") is subordinate to.Fragments and Run-ons What this handout is about Notice that now we have added an independent clause (a clause that can stand as a sentence on its own) to this sentence. found").Įven though he worked tirelessly, he failed to complete his paper. Now our sentence has a verb to match our subject ("the students. Some of the students working in the lab found extra supplies. We now know what occurred during the time specified by "During the night". Now that we have looked at these sentences as fragments, let's take a look at how they would look completed *A subordinate clause almost always will begin with a prepositional phrase (e.g., "even though", "despite", "although") This fragment actually contains a subject-verb relationship (he worked), but the phrase "even though" makes it clear that this is a subordinate clause*, and therefore it needs another clause to complete the sentence. Remember, for an -ing verb to be an action, it must be immediately preceded by another verb (e.g., we are working). This clause identifies a subject, but doesn't explain what the subject is doing. Notice that this clause locates something in time/space, but doesn't tell us what is happening. Typically, a fragment lacks a subject-verb relationship.įor example, these are a few sentence fragments: A sentence fragment occurs when a sentence is missing one of the key parts necessary for it to be a complete sentence.
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