Feel free to leave a comment - especially if I’ve been unclear or am mistaken - and follow my blog for more posts about teaching high school ELA. Figure 5a shows an example of intentional fragment in a Potential state and we also indicate that the sequencing of disconnected elements follows the pro- cess directives (transitive closure. I also suppose that this could be turned into a mini-lesson on fragments, specifically the confusion that exists in using although and though. Thanks for reading again this week! I just noticed this confusion and thought I would try to make sense of it in the context of teaching grammar. When missing words and sentence fragments are allowed to creep into its stories, it causes me to doubt the credibility of its reporters’ sources, the quoted material they use, their claims to unbiased reporting, and other aspects of quality journalistic writing. Still, the Associated Press needs to improve its proofreading. So, it’s understandable what might be causing these writing issues. When stories are churned out every few hours or so, being timely - and not quality-oriented - receives the emphasis. Who could blame them? When what they read out in the real world contains poor grammar, it plants the seeds of poor grammar in their own writing.Īnd yes, the 24/7 news cycle isn’t helping either. Well, as an English teacher, many kids unknowingly write unintentional sentence fragments. Simply put, six words provides more impact and rhythm and variety than sixteen. Furthermore, I believe the impact derives from the shorter length of the clause. Though she never completely forgot Ted.Īs for impact, Though she never completely forgot Ted certainly is more compelling than Though media watchers remain skeptical that Facebook is really committed to helping sustain the news industry. For example, in this explanation from Stack Exchange, “A writer might take liberties and use though as… a subordinate clause separated from its main clause by a period… for effect, especially with a long main clause and an impactful subordinate clause.” And then Stack Exchange provides this example: Every morning from then on she would set out from her cabin at dawn to wander through the forest, enjoying the smell of pine and the sweet relief of solitude. Of course, in this case, a writer could use some artistic license. The lead of the story that contained the two unintentional sentence fragments. In this case, however, there is no independent clause, and an unintentional fragment is the result. Though and although are basically interchangeable ( although is usually considered more formal), which means both words can be used to begin a dependent clause, which would then be attached to an independent clause. In the bottom fragment, things are more tricky. Intentional fragments that start with which are tricky they don’t offer the bluntness or the spark that other intentional fragments do. ![]() The top fragment, actually a dependent clause, should be joined to the independent clause before it, by lower-casing the W on which, and changing the period after installed to a comma. This screenshot of an Associated Press article contains two sentence fragments. I took the screenshot below and circled the two fragments in question. I’ll let you be the judge, but I think these sentence fragments are errors on the part of the writer. ![]() ![]() An intentional sentence fragment can add spark and sentence variety to a piece of writing, but the key is whether the fragment is written for its effect or… is it just an error? However, last night after reading a story about Facebook, I noticed another problem: sentence fragments.Īnd I get it. I often (and by often, I would estimate sixty percent of the time) notice one recurring problem: missing words. I have the Associated Press’ app on my phone and I frequently check it to stay up-to-date on current events. continues down the hall, searching for his daughter.Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash What’s an English teacher to do? Sees the neighbor's three thousand pound Aga stove hurtling for his head. A shower of burning debris falls all around him. In fact, I'd say you need to setup the immediate cause for Dan to spin anyway.ĭan charges into the burning inferno. But it's hard to imagine Dan spinning and searching at the same time. Dan can chew gum as he walks down the sidewalk. Sometimes a character does do more than one thing at a time, but in a lot of cases that "as he" just gets you in trouble.ĭan can stare at his reflection as he brushes his teeth. "Dan runs into the burning house and spins as he searches for his daughter." ![]() Plenty of other ways to write it, but I'd argue that the fragment works fine. The way I see your example used is more like this.īob stares at the train as it passes by.
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