- 3-minute read
- 16th April 2018
Sentence Fragments
As proofreaders, we use full, grammatical sentences wherever possible. But is this always necessary? And how can you prevent errors in your work? This guide to sentence fragments should help.
What Are Sentence Fragments?
A fragment is an incomplete sentence. To see how this works, you first need to know that a complete sentence contains at least a subject and a verb:
Subject | Verb |
Kelly… | …sings. |
Most sentences are a more complicated than this, though, which makes it easy to miss something out. For example, we could modify the sentence above to say:
Subject | Verb | Prepositional Phrase |
Kelly… | …sings… | …about love. |
Here, the prepositional phrase ‘about love’ adds some extra information. However, if we miss any of the words here out, we end up with an ungrammatical sentence. For instance:
Kelly sings about.
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Sings about love.
The first fragment here is missing the noun ‘love’ from the prepositional phrase at the end. The second is missing the subject. In both cases, the incomplete sentence is difficult to understand.
Are Fragments Always Wrong?
In less formal writing (and speech), sentence fragments are common. And as long as the reader can understand what you mean, there’s nothing wrong with using an incomplete sentence. Sometimes, sentence fragments can even be used for literary effect, especially in fictional dialogue or narration.
However, in formal writing such as an essay, it is always better to use full sentences. This ensures clarity and shows the person reading it that you have a strong grasp on written English.
How to Fix Fragments
There are a few things you can do fix sentence fragments in your writing. The most important is checking your work carefully for clarity. Keep in mind that every sentence should contain at least one independent clause (i.e. a subject and verb that could work as a standalone sentence).
Likewise, keep an eye out for missing phrases at the end of a sentence, or sentences that have been incorrectly split in two. For instance:
The experiment failed. Due to lack of time.
The second sentence here is a fragment. To complete it, we need join the sentences:
The experiment failed due to lack of time.
In formal writing, it’s even a good idea to avoid incomplete comparisons:
Opened in 1954, the factory in Victoria is bigger.
This is technically a complete sentence. However, it doesn’t say what the factory in Victoria is ‘bigger’ than, so the reader will be confused. As ever, the key here is to be clear and specific:
Opened in 1954, the factory in Victoria is bigger than the one in Sydney.
If you’re not confident about spotting fragments in your work, ask a friend to help or have your work proofread by professionals. This should ensure that all incomplete sentences are spotted!