What is a fragment, and please give me examples of it?

Question

What is a fragment, and please give me examples of it?

Answer 1

Fragments are incomplete sentences. Usually, fragments are pieces of sentences that have become disconnected from the main clause. One of the easiest ways to correct them is to remove the period between the fragment and the main clause. Other kinds of punctuation may be needed for the newly combined sentence.

EXAMPLES:

"Purdue offers many majors in engineering. --->Such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering.<---"

In between the arrows is the fragment. If you hadn't read the first part, and just read "Such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering" you would have no idea what the heck the person was talking about. It is a part, or a fragment, of a whole sentence or idea.

A possible revision of the sentence would be:

Purdue offers many majors in engineering, such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering.

There are more examples on the site below:

Answer 2

A fragment is simply an incomplete sentence - it does not have all the parts required to be a complete sentence.

Take the complete sentence "The bear walked through the forest."

"Through the forest."

This would be a fragment because the sentence has no subject (the bear) or verb (ran).

"Ran through the forest."

This would also be a fragment because it is lacking a subject (the bear).  

"The bear."

This would be a fragment because it lacks a verb (ran).

Essentially, what is necessary for a complete sentence is a subject and a verb.