Sentence Fragments

Grammatical Explanation: Fragments Aren't Just Short

Notice that calling a sentence a "fragment" or "incomplete" isn't about its length. What matters is what's in it -- that subject and verb mentioned above. Even if sentences are really simple -- as short as two words -- they can still be grammatically complete. They need only a subject and a verb. Tom fell. Meg died. Mopsy barked. Those are all complete sentences.

Conversely, some fragments can be quite long and full. Like this: An angry old man, with no one to care about or who cared about him, always suspicious of anyone passing by. This is indeed pretty long and full, but it's definitely a fragment -- the angry old man doesn't do anything. But if we add an action, it's a complete sentence: An angry old man, with no one to care about or who cared about him, always suspicious of anyone passing by, was caught off-guard by the little dog's vulnerability. Or even more simply, without the dog catching him off-guard (which we could put in a sentence to follow if we wanted), we could add a verb inside the existing string to make it a proper sentence: The angry old man, with no one to care about or who cared about him, was always suspicious of anyone passing by.

Examples

So -- with no main subject or verb -- "Without even a trace" would definitely be a fragment here:

He went missing. Without even a trace.

And so would "Royal blue and navy camo" and "Coolest ever" here:

She wore really distinctive Jordans. Royal blue and navy camo. Coolest ever.

In proper form, those sentences would look something like this:

He went missing without even a trace. And: She wore really distinctive Jordans. They were royal blue and navo camo, the coolest ever.

Other Kinds of Fragments

What we’ve already described is the most common sort of sentence fragment, when a sentence doesn’t have a main subject or a main verb -- that is, when we don't see somebody doing or being something. It's worth noting, too, that some fragments may not contain either a subject or a verb, like He packed up his things in a hurry. Really quickly. "Really quickly," which is only a couple of adverbs telling us how he packed his things up, is an obvious fragment.

But there are also two ways fragments can be constructed even when they do have subjects and verbs.

Dependent Clauses

The first is that you might include a word -- like because or but -- that would turn a subject-verb pair from what's called an independent clause into what's called a dependent clause.

Some quick background here: All strings of words that have subjects and verbs are clauses, but some can stand on their own and others can't. Like this: Blue is very trendy this year could easily stand on its own -- "blue" is the subject, and "is" is the verb. But if we say Because blue is really trendy this year, we're now waiting to for the other shoe to drop -- like what because blue is really trendy this year?...

That's a dependent clause, and if you put a period after it, it's a fragment.

So we'd need to finish the sentence, like: Because blue is really trendy this year, we should paint our bedroom.

In order to be more precise about this all, then, we should probably be talking about independent clauses rather than complete sentences here. Independent clauses are subject-verb combinations that aren't dependent on other subject-verb combinations -- as Because blue is really trendy this year is dependent on the independent clause we should paint our bedroom.

Long story short: any "complete sentence" needs at least one independent clause.

Compound Sentences (and Beginning a Sentence with And, But, or Or)

The second way you can make a fragment that does have a subject and verb is by beginning with a conjunction -- an and, but, or or.

You've probably had an English teacher somewhere along the line tell you never to begin a sentence with an and, but, or or. Though we all read sentences that begin with these words all the time, it's true that these sentences are technically incomplete. So starting with an and, but, or or is the second way a you can write a fragment that does have a main subject and verb.

Here's what we mean: if we say “And then she drove to work,” our reflex would necessarily be to look for the other thing that seems to have happened along with it. Traditionally, coordinating conjunctions -- and, but, or, and a few other words -- combine two independent clauses in a single sentence. That's what people call an "independent clause." So the "and" in this sentence suggests that the independent clause that follows it was meant to be connected to another one.

Register Considerations

Sentence fragments are increasingly common, even in published writing. In fact, you can tell we do it often ourselves here, like in the sentence above that begins with "And so would 'Royal blue and navy camo..." That's a fragment. But usage conventions -- the "rules" of grammar -- do change across time and context, as the concept of register suggests. This means that it's ok to choose not to follow the rule narrowly in certain contexts as long as you do it with your eyes open.

So while sentence fragments were probably less acceptable to most readers of American English 75 or 100 years ago, some fragments are now often used as an expressive way to emphasize an idea in moderately informal contexts. If the sentences above about the Jordans and the guy who went missing were in a piece of short fiction, for example, few readers would bat an eyelash. Those sentences would likely bother even fewer in a blog on true crime or fashion, where you might well have found them.

In formal contexts like academic papers, however, fragments of all sorts are still generally regarded as errors.

Unless you think your instructor is likely to be amenable to informal language, you should avoid them in work you submit for courses. Though you may read sentences that begin with and or that don't contain paired subjects and verbs and find them effective, you should think carefully about whether it seems appropriate in any academic paper you write.

Fixing a Sentence Fragment

To eliminate a fragment, you can do one of two things:

1. Add whatever's missing -- the subject, verb, or both:

Jonas made sure his friend would see the laptop he'd borrowed from her. Left it, plain as day, right in the middle of her desk.

--> Jonas made sure his friend would see the laptop he'd borrowed from her. He left it, plain as day, right in the middle of her desk.

2. Attach the fragment to some other independent clause:

Jonas made sure his friend would see the laptop he'd borrowed from her. Left it right in the middle of her desk.

--> Jonas made sure his friend would see the laptop he'd borrowed from her, leaving it right in the middle of her desk.