The infographic above offers “69 Rules for Punctuation.” Though 69 rules may seem overwhelming, they are organized by type, such as commas, parentheses, exclamation marks (don’t overuse these in college writing), and quotation marks. If punctuation challenges you, print the infographic out and put it on your notebook this semester! Here it is again:
“Williamsburg Bridge: April 1, 2014” by Jennifer SearsFragment
Fragment
~ a small part broken or separated off something
~ an isolated or incomplete part of something
A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence. Every sentence needs a subject/noun and a verb. A noun is a person place or thing, and a verb is an action or state of being. A sentence fragment is either missing a noun or a verb or, it doesn’t contain a complete thought. When looking for sentence fragments there is a tendency to look for short sentences. While it’s true that some sentence fragments are short, it’s not always the case. There are short sentences that are fine.
I am here. She is fun. We jumped. Rachel ate.
Each of these sentences is a complete sentence containing a subject and a verb.
Subject Verb
I am
she is
we jumped
Rachel ate
There are longer sentences that may not look like fragments, because they contain more information, but are still incomplete. This can happen when the subject or the verb is missing, or when the sentence does not contain a complete thought. Like this:
While eating cheetos, caressing her cat lovingly, and watching her favorite TV show.
There is no subject in that sentence. It is not clear who is eating cheetos. We can fix that sentence like this:
Jessica was eating cheetos, caressing her cat lovingly, and watching her favorite TV show.
Another way to fix that sentence is to complete the scenario that was set up by using the word while. Using the word while in the first version of that sentence, makes it seem as if something happened while Jessica was eating cheetos, caressing her cat, and watching TV. So, what happened?
Jessica fell asleep while eating cheetos, caressing her cat lovingly, and watching her favorite TV show.
Here is another sentence fragment. For example what my father has done before.
This fragment contains a subject and a verb, but it does not contain a complete thought. It is a particularly difficult sentence fragment because we have no idea what it is talking about. It could be saying just about anything.
For example what my father has done before was take his helicopter when he was late for work.For example what my father has done before is stay inside of the house for the entire winter because he hates the cold.
Capitalization works along with punctuation to indicate the beginning of a new sentence. It also indicates that something is a proper noun.
In most schools in the United States, capitalization is taught in the second grade. Although you may not have attended second grade in the United States or, your second grade teacher might have skipped that lesson, most readers will assume that you’ve learned the rules of capitalization. When writers do not adhere to the rules of capitalization it detracts from the quality of their writing. Making sure that everything is properly capitalized will help readers take your writing seriously.
1. Always capitalize the first letter of a new sentence. Notice in the paragraph above that the first letter of each sentence is capitalized.
2. Always capitalize the pronoun I.
I am looking for a summer job so that I can save money to put towards tuition in the fall. Even though I‘ll be working I‘m still looking forward to spending some time outside, in the sun.
3. Always capitalize the first letter of a proper noun (a name of something or someone.) Jason Pedro
Alabama Bangladesh
Kmart Disneyland
4. Always capitalize the first letter of the main words in a title, like this:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Malcolm in the Middle
Skip the smaller words like: and, a, an, the, of, and with, unless they are the first word of the title.
Many students worry about handwriting. Some believe handwriting is why they didn’t pass the test! Typically this is not the case; however, here are some small things you should know.
1. Capitalize: If your handwriting is such that all of your letters are the same size, pay extra attention to capitalizing the first letter of each sentence.
2. Use correct punctuation: Make sure that your comas look like comas and your periods look like periods so that you don’t end up accidentally creating sentence fragments. A coma must reach below the line that you’re writing on. A period is as dot that sits on the line that you’re writing on.
3. Inverted Letters: Avoid writing letters backwards, even if it’s just one letter, you don’t want the reader to be confused.
4. Writing big: It’s okay if you’re handwriting happens to be big, but make sure that your reader is able to distinguish between the capital letters and the lower case letters. Do not write your entire essay in capital letters.
5. Indent the first line of each paragraph so that it is clear to the reader when one paragraph ends and the next one begins.
