Fragments, or Why That’s Not a Sentence One of the most common grammatical errors is the sentence fragment. Actually, “Sentence Fragment” is kind of a misnomer, since the whole point is that the construction is not actually a sentence.

So What is a Sentence? A sentence is a construction that can stand alone as a complete thought. A sentence always has two key elements: A subject (the thing the sentence is about) A verb (the thing the subject is doing) A sentence always has both of these. A sentence is never dependent on something else to complete its meaning.

So What is a Fragment? A fragment is a construction that is not a complete sentence. Either is it missing one of the key elements, or it is dependent on another sentence for its meaning. Fragments are almost always continuations of the preceding sentences. This is why they can be hard to catch.

Fragment Type #1: Renamers Renamers rename or explain the last noun in the previous sentence. I got a card from my mother. Who is in Seattle this week. Yesterday I got a package. Two books from Amazon.com. Renamers very often begin with who or which.

Fragment Type #2: Adverbs Adverbs are words or clauses that tell when, where, how, and why something happened. I didn’t do my homework. Because I left my book at school. We all agreed to meet later. After class was over. The most common type of adverb fragments are “because” clauses.

Fragment Type #3 -ing Fragments -ing fragments begin with a verb in the –ing form. Walking three miles every day. Trying new thing. The problem here is that this words (walking and trying) aren’t actually verbs. No, really, they’re not. Trust me on this.

So What Do I Do? The reason the fragments are so hard to find is that they often “sound” correct. Since the previous sentence provides what’s missing, we don’t hear the error. What’s needed is something to break up the sentences so you can “hear” each one by itself.

The “I Realize” Test Our book suggests putting “I realize” in front of every sentence in your paper. I realize walking three miles a day. I realize because I left my book at school. You can “hear” that these constructions are not complete.

Isn’t that a lot of work? Well, yes. For a paper about the length of our first one, you can reasonably expect this process to take up to half an hour. There are, alas, few shortcuts to good writing. The good news is that if you do this consistently for several papers, you will gradually start to catch fragments as you write.