1. You can imagine how hard it was. Especially if you've ever tried to play baseball in freezing temperatures like we did that day.

2. Because I don't like the cold temperatures and the conditions of the field.

3. The snow coming down in my face and the ground being hard and slick with frost.

The sentences above illustrate some of the ways even a good writer might commit the error of an incomplete sentence (a sentence fragment). In number 1, the second part that appears as a sentence is really a fragment. Using a comma, the writer could simply join the second part to the first (which is complete), and one complete sentence would result.

1. You can imagine how hard it was, especially if you've ever tried to play baseball in freezing temperatures.

For sentence 2, the sentence would be complete without the word "because."

     2.  I don't like the cold temperatures and the conditions of the field.

Of course, the writer could leave "because" there if he joined the fragment to a complete sentence (as in number 1).

2.  Because I don't like the cold temperatures and the conditions of the field,
I don't play winter baseball with my friends.

The fragment of number 3 has occurred because the writer used "ing" words as the main verbs of the sentence. Words that end in "ing" are really adjectives, not verbs ("coming" describes the snow, and "being" describes the ground). Sentence number 3 could be made complete by replacing those adjectives with verbs.

     3.  The snow comes down in my face, and the ground is hard and slick with frost.

There's really not much point in examining all the ways a fragment could occur. It's far easier to review the elements all complete sentences should have. After that we'll look at one way a complete sentence could become incomplete.

As you've probably heard before, every sentence has a subject and a predicate. The subject of a sentence is simply the somebody or something that does something in a sentence. The predicate of a sentence is what that person or thing is doing -- a verb along with any other words that are directly connected to the verb (descriptive words, for example). When you're concerned about sentences being complete, ask yourself if each of your sentences expresses a complete thought about somebody or something doing an action or being in a certain way. Consider these examples:

He was too late for supper. (The subject here is "He," and the predicate is the verb "was" along with the words that follow.)

Although he could sleep on the lumpy tent floor, he awoke early because of the bright morning sun. (Notice how the thought is not complete in this sentence until you encounter the subject "he" and the verb "awoke.")

When you have a subject and a predicate expressing a complete thought, you have all the essential elements of a complete sentence. As mentioned before, however, there is one common way a complete sentence can become incomplete. When certain words are added to the beginning of a sentence, they can make it an incomplete thought:

• I have a headache.
  
• Since I have a headache.

Notice how the first sentence here is complete but the second is not. The word "since" leaves the reader asking for more before the thought can be considered complete. We call such expressions dependent clauses because they can't stand alone. They must always be part of a sentence that completes the thought.

• Since I have a headache, I'll have to stay home tonight.

Since all writers are also readers, we can often sense when we have one of these words that begin dependent clauses. Then we can be sure to complete the thought such words begin. Here is a list of some of the most common words that begin dependent clauses:

• after, although, as, before, if, since, unless, when, while, who, which, that

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