Sentence Fragments and Ways to Find and Fix Them

Example of a Fragment and How it was Fixed.

A fragment is a “piece” (or part) of a sentence because it is missing information to make a complete sentence. A sentence fragment is missing a subject, a verb, or a complete idea. Let’s look at an example:

Fragment: All day at the beach.

In the example above, there is no subject, verb, or complete idea. We do not know who was at the beach and we do not know what happened at the beach. Now, let’s add a subject and a verb to the fragment:

Sentence: We played all day at the beach.

In the example above, there is now a subject (we), verb (played), and a complete idea.

Find Sentence Fragments

One way to check if your sentence is a fragment is to use the “random person” test. If you said that sentence (by itself) to a person you do not know, would that person understand you? Look at the two sentences below. Are they fragments?

I eat a lot of chocolate. Whenever I am nervous or bored.

Imagine you walk up to a person you do not know and say, “I eat a lot of chocolate.” Does that make sense? Did you express a complete idea? Yes! That idea is a complete idea and can be understood by itself.

Now imagine you tell a person, “Whenever I am nervous or bored.” Have you expressed a complete idea? Could that person understand exactly what you are trying to express? No. This is a fragment. It cannot be understood by itself. This fragment can be fixed by combining it with the previous sentence. See below:

I eat a lot of chocolate whenever I am nervous or bored.

Three Sentence Situations that Cause Writers to Accidentally Create Fragments

1. Sentences that have introductory phrases can make it easy to create a fragment. In the example below, the first group of words introduces the complete idea:

Fragment: While walking by the house. The mailman noticed a hurt dog.

We can fix this fragment by combining it with the sentence that comes after it. See below:

Corrected: While walking by the house, the mailman noticed a hurt dog.

2. Sentences with an incomplete idea added at the end of a complete idea also cause fragments. See the example below:

Fragment: I love reading good books. Especially adventure stories.

This kind of fragment can be fixed by putting a comma after the complete idea, before the incomplete idea. See below:

Corrected: I love reading good books, especially adventure stories.

3. Sentences with connecting words (conjunctions) can make it easy to create a fragment. See the example below:

Fragment: Whenever I visit my hometown. I hang out with my high school friends.

We can fix this fragment by placing a comma after the phrase that has the conjunction. See below:

Corrected: Whenever I visit to my hometown, I hang out with my high school friends.

Another way to fix that fragment is to put the phrase with the conjunction after the complete idea. See below:

Corrected: I hang out with my friends from high school whenever I visit my hometown.

Practice Problems

1. Which of the following phrases are fragments? Choose all that apply:

1. At her mom's house
2. She laughs a lot
3. Especially young people
4. Many people love dogs
5. Every time they go to work
6. My friends love helping others

2. The following passage contains a fragment. What is the best way to correct the fragment: On Yani’s birthday each year. Her grandmother bakes a chocolate cake.

1. On Yani's birthday each year her grandmother bakes a chocolate cake.
2. On Yani's birthday each year although her grandmother bakes a chocolate cake.
3. On Yani's birthday each year, her grandmother bakes her a chocolate cake.
4. On Yani's birthday each year her grandmother, bakes a chocolate cake.

3. The following passage contains a fragment. What is the best way to correct the fragment: Many children love to hear stories. Such as fairy tales and fables.

1. Many children love to hear stories for example, fairy tales and fables.
2. Many children love to hear stories, such as fairy tales and fables.
3. Many children love to hear stories such as, fairy tales and fables.
4. Many children love to hear stories such as fairy tales and fables.

4. The following passage contains a fragment. What is the best way to correct the fragment: Every time I go to the store. I buy bread.

1. Every time I go to the store, I buy, bread.
2. Every time I go to the store, then I buy bread.
3. Every time I go to the store I need to buy bread.
4. Every time I go to the store, I buy bread.

5. Choose the correct option to complete the following sentence: A fragment is an incomplete sentence because it does not have which of the following:

1. Enough specific details to make the ideas clear.
2. Proper punctuation and capitalization.
3. A subject, a verb, or a complete idea.
4. A clear focus on the topic of the paragraph.