Other Kinds of Sentence Fragments
Remember that every clause must have a subject and a verb and that every sentence must have at least one independent clause. Any group of words written as a sentence that does not have both a subject and a verb is a sentence fragment:
Had never eaten so much - no subject
Being nervous - no subject
The chips and beer- no verb
Sentence fragments like these are corrected by making sure that each has both an adequate subject and a complete verb:
I had never eaten so much.
The chips and beer tasted great.
I was nervous.
or
Being nervous, I spoke far too quickly.
As with the last example above, sometimes a sentence fragment can be corrected by combining it with the preceding or following sentences you have written. For example, suppose you have written:
Being nervous. I spoke far too quickly.
All you need to do to correct the fragment is to change the period to a comma, and attach the fragment to the simple sentence:
Being nervous, I spoke far too quickly.
Sentence fragments increasingly are used in writing for newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and other kinds of non-academic writing. Despite their popularity, they remain grammatically incorrect and inappropriate for academic and other kinds of formal writing.