Wishing they’d brought their umbrella and dreaming of their nice warm bed, they waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday, determined to make it to class for their test.Īs your sentences grow more complicated, it gets harder to spot and stay focused on the basic elements of a complete sentence, but if you look carefully at the examples above, you’ll see that the main thought is still that they waited-one main subject and one main verb. Wishing they’d brought their umbrella, they waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday. They waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday. But independent clauses (i.e., complete sentences) can be expanded to contain a lot more information, like this: We can understand the idea completely with just those two words, so again, it’s independent-an independent clause. This sentence has a subject (They) and a verb (waited), and it expresses a complete thought. Some sentences can be very short, with only two or three words expressing a complete thought, like this: a complete thought (it can stand alone and make sense-it’s independent).A complete sentence has three components: What is a complete sentence? A complete sentence is not merely a group of words with a capital letter at the beginning and a period or question mark at the end. The basicsīefore we get to the problems and how to fix them, let’s take a minute to review some information that is so basic you’ve probably forgotten it. It will help you locate and correct sentence fragments and run-ons. If instructors have ever returned your papers with “frag,” “S.F.,” “R.O.,” or “run-on” written in the margin, you may find this handout useful. And Beth out.Fragments and Run-ons What this handout is about You gotta have a subject andĪ verb, put 'em together, slap on a period, you've got a sentence. You're building sentences you have to make sure that what you've got is a subject and a predicate. Of the snowstorm, comma, we stayed home from school, period. Of the snowstorm, period, that wouldn't be a sentence. And if it were just we, period, that also wouldn't be a sentence. Home from school, period, that wouldn't be a sentence. So we've got this sentence here, this independent clause, right. Something could happen, but we don't know what that is, so, because of the snowstorm, Have, doesn't really have a subject or a verb. What we call, not even a, I mean it's not even aĭependent clause, right? It, this thing doesn't Why not? - Well youĭon't tell what happened because of that snowstorm. All right, what aboutīecause of the snowstorm? Is that a sentence, Beth? - Nope. Then you've got the part that finishes the thought, Got a part that names, that's your subject, and Or something performed by that noun our pronoun. Have to have something happen to that noun or pronoun, So you need to have a thing, like a noun, or a pronoun, and then you Order to be a sentence, you need to have both a Right, we're telling about something but we don't know what. To be a sentence either, that's also a fragment. Similarly, if we just had this predicate, and we just said it began ten years ago, oh, that's not enough Here, the whole story, and now we've given it a predicate. All right, so, the whole story began 10 years ago. Would call a predicate, in other words, so we're giving a subject, but we're not telling what Is the whole story missing? - Well we've got a subject but we don't have what we That cannot stand on its own, but nevertheless, incorrectlyĮnds with a period. The way I would put it, is that a fragment is a piece of a sentence So sentence fragments don't tell the whole story. Or it might include who but doesn't tell what happens. Maybe what happens, but doesn't include who, A sentence fragment is whenĪ student writes a sentence and they think it's a sentence, but it's one that tells So today weĪre going to talk about sentence fragments, andīeth you cover these in classes that you teach. Grammarians, David here along with my cousin Beth whoĪlso happens to be a teacher.
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