13 Although their influence was, for the most part, a good one, the coffee
Dependent clause houses sometimes fell into disrepute, and the authorities more than once
Ind. clause complained that they were being used for seditious gatherings.
Ind. clause
c. Four Sentence Errors
There are four sentence errors which commonly occur in students writing Mallery, 1957, p. 112. They are the sentence fragment, the comma splice, the
fused sentence, and the dangling modifier.
1 The Sentence Fragment
The error which commonly occurs in students’ writing is sentence fragment. A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence. Some fragments are
incomplete because they lack either a subject or a verb, or both “The Writing,” 2012. Moreover, a fragment is a phrase or a dependent clause as it is thought as a
complete sentence “Sentence,” n.d.. Complete sentence is a sentence which has a subject and a verb in a sentence and conveys one idea. A sentence is considered
as a sentence fragment when it lacks a subject, a verb, or both. Mallery 1957 clarifies a sentence as “a group of words expressing one
complete thought” p. 112. Therefore, a sentence which expresses a complete thought is a complete sentence which has a subject and a verb in a sentence.
Hence, a writer has to keep in mind that a sentence expresses a complete thought and have a subject and a verb in it.
Mallery suggests some ways to avoid sentence errors occur in the writing composition. It is provided in the following suggestions:
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1. Do not write a dependent clause as though it were a complete sentence. 2. Do not write an appositive introduced by such expression as that is, for
example, or namely as though it were a complete sentence. 3. Do not write a participial phrase as though it were a complete sentence.
Mallery, 1957, pp. 113-114
It is clear that a sentence must express a complete thought. If the sentence is incomplete, it is considered as a sentence fragment. Besides, a dependent clause
is not considered as a complete sentence as well as it does not represent a complete thought. They are provided in the following examples:
Accompanied by some nurses in the hospital. It is missing a subject Information from television. It is missing a verb
Because the weather is not good. It is an incomplete thought These examples are considered as sentence fragment because it does not
have a subject and a verb in the sentence and do not express a complete thought either.
2 The Comma Splice
The sentence error comes from the use of comma to join two clauses or complete sentences, whereas comma is a separating mark “Sentence,” n.d.. The
example is provided below. Two children cook turkey behind their house, the turkey is well-cooked
in the pan.
In the compound sentence, there are two independent clauses. To avoid error of comma splice, the writer uses coordinating conjunctions, such as and, but,
15 nor or semicolon while to avoid error of comma splices in complex sentences, the
writer is able to put subordinating conjunctions, such as because, since, when, while, etc if the dependent clause is in the first part.
3 The Fused Sentence
Mallery 1957 notes “two or more sentences run together with no mark of punctuation between them are said to be fused” p. 115. Therefore the way to
avoid it is by separating them and punctuating them appropriately. The example is in the following.
I work in the office every day I drive my own car after I have breakfast.
4 The Dangling Modifier
Dangle can be explained like “if a participle, for example, cannot be thus connected with its antecedent in the sentence, it is called dangle” Mallery, 1957,
p. 116. It means dangling modifier is not really clear seen what it modifies. Dangling modifiers describe nothing and dangle in the sentences “Sentence,”
n.d.. It occurs when the modifier is put in the wrong place. The example is provided below.
Hanging from the ledge high over a mountain, Danielle saw the tree with their brightly colored fall leaves “Sentence,” n.d..
“Hanging from the ledge high over a mountain” is dangling modifier since it does not modify the right object it modifies. The modifier must be close to the
object it modifies.
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d. Improving Sentence Structure
