In more formal genres such as the academic essay, however, they should generally be avoided. ” Used judiciously, sentence fragments also have a place in journalism. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth. The opening paragraph of Dickens’s Bleak House consists mostly of fragments: “Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. In the hands of a skilled novelist, they may bring prose to life. Not all sentence fragments need to be fixed. Reading aloud is an excellent way to alert yourself to the presence of incomplete sentences. However, it would have made little difference in a system based on proportional representation. Strategic voting played a key role in the Liberal victory.Strategic voting played a key role in the Liberal victory, although it would have made little difference in a system based on proportional representation.Īlternatively, you could replace the conjunction with a sentence adverb:.The key to fixing the problem is often to join the two sentences: Although it would have made little difference in a system based on proportional representation. Usually, that is because it begins with a word-a subordinating conjunction like although or because or when-that makes the sentence want to lean against a neighbouring one. The second type of sentence fragment has a subject and a predicate, but the sentence still can’t stand on its own.The catalyst that initiated a chain reaction between the two test compounds in an acidic solution had no effect on the same two compounds in a pH-neutral solution of water.Or you could develop the initial sentence by adding a predicate that tells us more about the catalyst: The catalyst initiated a chain reaction between the two test compounds in an acidic solution.You could, for example, make the initiation of a chain reaction your main point: Your strategy for converting the fragment into a full sentence depends on what you’re trying to say. The subject is the entire sentence, beginning with the catalyst and ending with acidic solution. The verb initiated doesn’t save this sentence from being a sentence fragment.
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