Perhaps your final research paper in English Composition is not the place to experiment - or, then again, maybe it is. In a New York minute.Īs long as you are clearly in control of the situation, this is permissible, but the freedom to exercise this stylistic license depends on the circumstances.
In both fiction and nonfiction, the sentence fragment may be used deliberately to. In formal writing, the proscription against using fragments often makes good sense. Harrison Ford has said he would be more than willing to take on another Indiana Jones project. A sentence expresses a complete idea, but a fragment neglects to tell the reader either what it is about (the subject) or what happened (the verb )' (p. There are occasions when a sentence fragment can be stylistically effective, exactly what you want and no more. the more powerful speaker, he lost the case because he didn't understand the jury. We need an independent clause to follow up this dependent clause. This sentence fragment has a subject, he, and two verbs, had and was, but it cannot stand by itself because of the dependent word (subordinating conjunction) even though. It may even have a subject-verb relationship, but it has been subordinated to another idea by a dependent word and so cannot stand by itself: Even though he had the better arguments and was by far the more powerful speaker.
Remember that an -ing verb form without an auxiliary form to accompany it can never be a verb. It may have most of the makings of a sentence but still be missing an important part of a verb string: Some of the students working in Professor Espinoza's laboratory last semester. It describes something, but there is no subject-verb relationship: Working far into the night in an effort to salvage her little boat.This is a verbal phrase that wants to modify something, the real subject of the sentence (about to come up), probably the she who was working so hard. This sentence accomplishes a great deal in terms of placing the reader in time and place, but there is no subject, no verb. It may locate something in time and place with a prepositional phrase or a series of such phrases, but it's still lacking a proper subject-verb relationship within an independent clause: In Japan, during the last war and just before the armistice. There are several reasons why a group of words may seem to act like a sentence but not have the wherewithal to make it as a complete thought. It does not contain even one independent clause. To correct this sentence fragment, we can add a complete thought such as After the party, I went to bed. The reader is left wondering what happened after the party. For instance, After the party is a sentence fragment because it does not provide a complete thought. Shakespeare, perhaps the world’s greatest writer, is often referred to as the Bard Homer, another contender for greatest writer, is referred to as the Poet.If your computer is equipped with PowerPoint, click on the PowerPoint icon to the right for a brief PowerPoint presentation on Sentence Fragments.Ī SENTENCE FRAGMENT fails to be a sentence in the sense that it cannot stand by itself. It means that the sentence does not convey a complete idea.I can’t turn it off my phone keeps ringing.Serpents and dragons appear in many myths and folktales they have powerful effects on the human mind.My car won’t start, the rain won’t stop.In general, the Ancient Greeks spoke Greek the Ancient Romans spoke Latin.The universe might not be infinite, some scientists propose that it is finite like a bubble.Thought control can take many forms, censorship, book-burning, and canceling are common types.The printer doesn’t work right it just makes weird sounds and shuts off.