What is a “sentence fragment”?

A sentence fragment occurs when one or more of the following is true:

• there is no verb
• there is no subject
• the word group is part of a subordinate clause or phrase

A true sentence must contain at least one independent clause: a group of words with a subject and a verb that can stand alone. For example:

We shopped at the mall all day. Laughing and talking the whole time.

The first part of the example shows a complete sentence:

• it contains a subject: “We”
• and a verb: “shopped”

However, the latter part of the example contains a verb, but no subject; therefore, we have a sentence fragment. To fix a sentence fragment, try to

• make it part of another sentence
• make it a sentence

To fix our example above, make the fragment a part of the sentence:

We shopped at the mall all day, laughing and talking the whole time.

Or you could make the fragment its own sentence:

We shopped at the mall all day. We were laughing and talking the whole time.

Examples

Be wary of lists; they cannot stand by themselves:

I have three favorite foods. Pizza, tacos, and eggplant.

The latter half of the example is a fragment. Use a colon instead of the period to make it correct:

I have three favorite foods: pizza, tacos, and eggplant.

---

Composition FAQ