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How to Create a Fragment

A fragment is a set of words forming an incomplete sentence. A complete sentence always contains a main clause. Main clauses have an independent subject and verb that together express a complete thought. Commonly, fragments are portions of sentences that have been separated from the main clause with periods, question marks or exclamation points. Intentional creation of fragments is a conventional journalistic practice. Fragments are created to draw the reader to a point of emphasis. Formal and academic writing do not commonly use the journalistic practice of intentional fragment use.

Instructions

    • 1

      Start the fragment with a capital letter. Fragmented sentences follow the same construct as regular sentences with the exception of having a main clause.

    • 2

      Use a prepositional phrase as a fragment. Combine prepositions, such as "about," "because," "except," "regarding," "under" and "versus" with an appropriate prepositional object to form complete phrases that can be used as journalistic fragments. Prepositional phrases are also expressed as sentences without a subject. Add a preposition to a grammatically correct sentence to force the subject to become the object of the preposition.

    • 3

      Treat the fragment as though it is an embedded title. Content that appears in headlines as a title and and does not form a complete sentence is the way journalists use fragments in the body of an article or composition. When treating a fragment as though it is an embedded title, use sentence capitalization and punctuation rules. Just as titles do not require complete grammatical thoughts, title-type fragments can be used to emphasis ideas without conforming to grammatically correct sentence structure.

    • 4

      Exclude the main verb from a sentence. Sentences without main verbs are fragments. For example, Purdue's Online Writing Lab explains the fragment, "A story with deep thoughts and emotions." is missing the main verb.

    • 5

      Separate dependent clauses from the main sentence. Dependent clauses require connection to a main clause. A common indicator of dependent clauses include is the use of a comma to separate the clause from the independent clause.

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