UMUC

Effective Writing Center (EWC)

My instructor says I need to fix my grammar. Help!

Sentence Fragments (Continued ...)

In all of the examples above, the red flag words in bold signal the beginning of a dependent clause that cannot stand alone. Thus, these dependent clauses are fragments that need to be connected to the main clause that precedes them.

  • We were late to class this morning because we overslept and missed the bus.
  • I hate going shopping at the mall, especially during the holiday season.
  • Freshmen tend to have a lot of problems adjusting to college life, such as managing their time, maintaining a budget, and balancing work with play.
  • My roommate has more clothes than anyone I have ever met, which is why there is no room in the closet for any of my clothes.

MORE TIPS FOR DETECTING FRAGMENTS

Many fragments occur when phrases provide a lot of information but do not contain a proper subject and verb relationship. Below are some examples:

A series of prepositional phrases:

After the game but before the other team went home.

REVISED:
After the game but before the other team went home, the student body threw a celebration party for both teams because it was such an excellent competition.

Notice here we added an independent clause to tell what happened.

A verbal phrase that provides description:

Staying late after work every day in hopes of meeting the deadline.

REVISED:

Staying late after work every day in hopes of meeting the deadline, Sheila existed on leftover pizza and stale donuts because she didn’t have time to eat a proper dinner.

Again, we added an independent clause to tell what happened.

Nearly a sentence but missing part of the complete verb:

Some of the students acting in the play this spring.

Remember that “-ing” verbs must have an auxiliary verb with it to function as the verb of the sentence. Without the auxiliary, it is just a verbal (which usually functions as an adjective).

REVISED: Some of the students were acting in the play this spring.

Here we simply added the missing auxiliary of the verb.

ANOTHER REVISON: Some of the students acting in the play this spring were from Spain.

Remember, fragments often have nothing to do with sentence length, but instead are fragments because they are missing something to make them complete sentences. For example, the following sentence is long, but it is a fragment:

Staying up until 3 in the morning to finish papers, eating cheap fast food, spending hours in the library looking for books to finish a project, enjoying cold pizza for breakfast, trying to remember everything the professor said about World War I in time for the test, ignoring friends, and leaving messages from parents unreturned during finals week.

REVISED: Staying up until 3 in the morning to finish papers, eating cheap fast food, spending hours in the library looking for books to finish a project, enjoying cold pizza for breakfast, trying to remember everything the professor said about World War I in time for the test, ignoring friends, and leaving messages from parents unreturned are just a few of my bad habits during finals week.

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