Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my channel, Sparkle English, where I teach you how to improve
your level of English. This is a new video in my popular series on English writing essentials.
In today's lesson, I'm going to teach you all about sentence fragments and how to fix them.
We're going to talk about three ways that we can create sentence fragments,
and how we can fix them so we can improve our writing in English. I'll also talk about when
it is okay to use sentence fragments and give you some examples as well. At the end of this video,
we will also do a practice session where you have to fix the sentence fragments,
and we will correct them together. So what is a sentence fragment? A sentence fragment is a
sentence that is missing either its subject or its main verb, or does not form a complete thought.
So if we look at this little example, and this man says he to the store, well, that is a sentence
fragment, it is missing a verb, he went to the store. Now that would be a complete sentence.
A sentence fragment is not a complete sentence. To fix a sentence fragment, you need to add
what is missing from the sentence or join it with another sentence. So first, we're going to look
at sentence fragments without a subject. When a sentence fragment is missing a subject,
you must add it to form a complete sentence. So here are some examples. Number one.
Is a kind and patient man. Now this is a sentence fragment because we're missing a subject. Who is
a kind and patient man? We have to put a subject. For example: My father is a kind and patient man.
Now that would be a complete sentence. Number two. Have lived abroad for over 10 years. Again, we're
missing a subject. Who has lived abroad for over 10 years? I have lived abroad for over 10 years.
Number three: barked all night long. Again, we're missing a subject. We have to say
who or what barked all night long. My dog, or the neighbor's dog barked all night long.
And finally, number four, yelled and shouted at the students. Again, we are
missing the subject. Who yelled and shouted at the students? The mean teacher yelled and shouted
at the students. So by adding a subject, we have fixed all of these sentence fragments.
Now let's look at segment fragments without a verb.
When a sentence fragment is missing a verb, you must add one to form a complete sentence.
So for example, number one: friendship, a beautiful thing. Now this is missing a verb.
We have the subject friendship, but we don't have a verb. So we need to add a verb. Friendship is
a beautiful thing. For example, let's look at number two: the scared child under the bed. Again,
we're missing a verb. What about the scared child? The scared child is hiding under the bed.
We have to add a verb to make this a complete sentence. And let's look at number three. An
adorable little puppy in the park. Again, this is missing a verb. We have the subject,
the puppy, but we don't know anything about what it's doing. What about the puppy? An adorable
little puppy is playing in the park, for example. So adding verbs to these three sentences has now
fixed them and made them complete sentences. So number three is a little more difficult: dependent
clause segment fragments. Some of the most common segment fragments are dependent clauses that
cannot stand alone. You must add or join it with an independent clause to form a complete sentence.
So an independent clause is a complete sentence. So if we look at number one: because I don't feel
very well. This is a sentence fragment. This is only the dependent clause. If we had just "I don't
feel very well," that is an independent clause. But because I don't feel very well is a dependent
clause, we need to add an independent clause. So this makes sense. For example, you could say:
I'm not going to work today because I don't feel very well. By adding this independent clause "I'm
not going to work today," the dependent clause makes sense. And this is now a complete sentence.
Now let's look at number two. When I'm finished my homework. Again, this is a dependent clause;
it doesn't make sense by itself. We have to add it to an independent clause.
For example: when I'm finished my homework, I am going to watch TV. Now let's look at number
three. If it finally stopped raining. We need to add an independent clause to this as well,
so it becomes a complete sentence. We will go to the beach if it finally stops raining.
And finally, number four: to let me know what to bring to the party. Again, we need to add this to
an independent clause. My sister called me to let me know what to bring to the party. So by adding
complete sentences to these dependent clauses, we have now fixed all of these sentence fragments.
I want you to see if you can identify which of the following sentences are sentence fragments.
And if so, can you correct them? We're going to do these step-by-step and one at a time.
So let's look at number one. Went for dinner with John and his new girlfriend last night. This
is a sentence fragment. So we have to fix this sentence. What are we missing here?
We have the verb went, but we're missing a subject. Who went for dinner with John
and his new girlfriend last night? So we need to add a subject. We could say my parents went
for dinner with John and his new girlfriend last night. Of course, we would make the W lowercase.
Now number two: every summer, my family on holiday with our neighbors. This is also incorrect. This
is a sentence fragment. What are we missing in sentence two? Well, we are missing a verb.
Every summer, my family on holiday. You'd want to add a verb such as goes.
My family goes on holiday with our neighbors. What about number three? She laughed.
This is not a sentence fragment. This sentence is correct all by itself. Just because a sentence is
short does not mean it is a sentence fragment. We have the subject she, we have the verb laughed,
and it expresses a complete thought. She laughed. The person, the woman, laughed.
So this is not a sentence fragment. Number four: ran for seven miles in the rain.
This is a sentence fragment. What are we missing? We're missing the subject. Who ran?
He ran for seven miles in the rain. Again, we would make ran to a lowercase
r. And now we have the subject, and this is a complete sentence. What about number five? We
went skiing in Quebec for the weekend. Because there was a lot of snow. Now if you remember,
we just talked about dependent clause sentence fragments. "Because there was a lot of snow" is
a dependent clause. So how about we join that with our first sentence, we went skiing in Quebec for
the weekend. We're going to erase this period here and change this to lowercase b. We went
skiing in Quebec for the weekend because there was a lot of snow. This is now a complete sentence.
Number six, she has many talents. Such as singing, dancing and acting.
Again, such as singing, dancing and acting-- this is a dependent clause. You need to add this to the
independent clause. She has many talents. So we'll change the period to a comma and change the s
to a lower case s. She has many talents, such as singing, dancing and acting. Now
this is a complete sentence. And finally, number seven: Javier a tall, dark, and handsome man.
Again, here we have the subject Javier, but we're missing a verb. So we're going to take away this
comma, and we're going to say Javier is a tall, dark, and handsome man. Okay, so I want you to
let me know in the comments section how many got correct out of seven, or if you change the
sentences in any other way. For example, you added a different verb or a different subject.
Now finally, before we finish this lesson, can you ever use sentence
fragments? While in formal writing, or when you're writing an essay or a test at school,
try to avoid using sentence fragments. However, some writers choose to use sentence fragments
for stylistic reasons or for dramatic effect. So here's a famous example from Pride and Prejudice.
"Oh single, my dear to be sure, a single man of large fortune four or 5000 a year. What a fine
thing for our girls." Now, this is the famous author Jane Austen, in the very famous book
Pride and Prejudice. And of course, she has used sentence fragments for dramatic effect.
We also use sentence fragments in informal settings like when you're talking or texting
or informal emails. So for example, if Tina asked, "When are we going to the cinema?"
Jack might respond, "Friday or Saturday night." Yes, this is a sentence fragment,
but it's perfectly normal to write sentence fragments in texts and informal emails.
Okay, so that is it for my lesson on sentence fragments. I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
And make sure to subscribe to Sparkle English for more videos just like this
one on how to improve your English language and writing skills. See you in my next lesson.