sentence_fragments.doc

What is sentence fragments? A sentence is defined as a group of words containing a subject, a verb, and a complete thought. If any of these elements is missing, then the group of words isnt a sentence. A fragment is a group of words that is punctuated like a sentence and that is trying to function as a sentence, but one of the necessary elements is missing. How to identify “sentence fragments”? There are several ways to find and correct fragments. u Does it have a subject? u Does it have a verb?u Does it start with a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun that keeps the thought from being complete? If the answer to any of the questions is no, it is a fragment. How to correct “fragment sentence”?Correcting fragments is fairly simple and you have several options. u For a fragment that is missing a subject or verb, add the missing element. E.g. Pizza afterwards.u If the problem is a subordinating conjunction, the conjunction can be removed which would make the fragment a complete sentence. e.g. Scientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption. Although caffeine does cause convulsions and death in certain animals.correct:2nd sentence = fragmentScientists report no human deaths due to excessive caffeine consumption, although caffeine does cause convulsions and death in certain animals.u Another option is to join the fragment to another sentence either before it or after it in the paragraph creating a complex sentence. E.g. If you want to travel abroad. Quiz yourself to identify which sentence is a complete sentence which sentence is a fragment? 1. Then I attended Morris Junior High. A junior high that was a bad experience. 2. He talked for fifty minutes without taking his eyes off his notes. Like other teachers in that department, he did not encourage students questions.3. Within each group, a wide range of features to choose from. It was difficult to distinguish between them.4. 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.5. In the seventh grade every young boy goes out for football. To prove to himself and his parents that he is a man.6. 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.7. The small, one-story houses are all the same size and style. With no difference except the color.When can you use sentence fragments?Sentence fragments are often intentional in u newspaper and magazines ads. Fragment: (1)Faster! Better! No money down! (ads)(2)The Market Outlook: More Plunges, or a Year-End Rally? (3) Rising From the Rubble of Sichuan Quakeu When you write conversations, because you are writing how people speak, and people very seldom speak in complete sentences. _Whats going to happen to Boyde, now that Bill is dead?_Dont know._Do you care?_Nope. Dont know and dont care!u In poems Fragments have been a significant feature of the works of three groups of poets: the American Transcendentalists, the Imagists, and a range of Post-modern poets.In the following passage from the second section of Song of Myself, Whitman uses a catalogue consisting of more than twenty noun phrases (NPs):e.g.The smoke of my own breath, Echoes, ripples, buzzd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood andair through my lungs,The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-colord sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,The sound of the belchd words of my voice loosd to the eddies of the wind,A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,The play of the shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,The feeling of health, the full-moon trill, the song of me rising from bed andmeeting the sun. (29, ll. 21-28)Whatever their goals are in using fragments, all of these poets assert that the nature of raw huma