The dialogue then proceeds using a series of questions and answers, and comes to a conclusion in which one speaker realizes his or her argument is unsound.Īlthough there are times when it is useful to do away with fragments, there are also times when fragments make your writing better. The other speaker refutes that same claim. One of these speakers puts forward a claim, and argues that one approach to the idea is more valid than the other. Let us rewrite the paragraph above, getting rid of the fragments by attaching them to main clauses.Ī Socratic dialogue often involves two people discussing a single idea in several stages. Generally, the way to fix fragment sentences is to link them to a main/independent clause to make a sentence that expresses a complete thought. And comes to a conclusion in which one speaker realizes his or her argument is unsound. The dialogue proceeds using a series of questions and answers. The other speaker, refuting the same claim. Arguing that one approach to the idea is more valid than the other. One of these speakers is putting forward a claim. People who are discussing a single idea in several stages. Take a look at this paragraph and see what fragments can do to your writing:Ī Socratic dialogue often involves two people. What do they do to my writing?įragments do not form a complete thought like a sentence does, and so having too many of them will either confuse your reader or make your writing sound choppy (not smooth). Thus, fragments are generally not suited to formal, written work. The writing process, however, requires you to organize your thoughts and express yourself in a more polished way. What was ‘trying to catch up’? Who went ‘to look for salamanders in the cave’? What will happen when ‘the sky changes’? We use fragments a lot in our speech, which is fine because speech is mainly expressing our thoughts, fully formed or not.
These phrases appear to need more information to complete them: they are all missing either a subject or a main verb. In more grammatical terms, it is a dependent clause standing on its own as a sentence. A sentence fragment is precisely what it sounds like: an incomplete sentence.