Sentence Fragments

Sentence fragments are snippets of words that don’t quite add up to a complete thought. There are several common types of sentence fragments, including:

• Subordinate clause fragments
• Participial phrase fragments
• Infinitive phrase fragments

Let’s take a look at each of them.

To understand sentence fragments, we must first know what a complete sentence looks like. In its most basic form, a sentence consists of a subject (a noun) and a predicate (a verb). In rare cases, the subject is implied and you can leave off the noun, as in the imperative sentence Go! Let’s stick with the basics for now.

Example: I ran.

In the example above, “I” is the subject, the doer of the action. “Ran” is the predicate. We can add clauses and descriptors to this basic sentence, further developing our thoughts: “I ran far away,” “Because I was being chased by a flock of seagulls, I ran far away,” etc.

Grammatically sound sentences like “I ran” are also called independent clauses. Because they’re independent, they can stand by themselves as complete thoughts. Dependent clauses, on the other hand, lack either a subject or predicate. Writers run into trouble when their dependent clauses attempt to masquerade as complete thoughts.

Subordinate Clause Fragments

Incorrect: Because of Sarah’s bad hip.

“Because” is a subordinating conjunction that indicates the start of a subordinate—or dependent—clause. Notice that it does not contain a predicate (a verb phrase). This fragment withholds key information from the reader. For example, what happened to Sarah because of her hip?

Correct: Because of Sarah’s bad hip, she was no longer able to compete in ballroom dance tournaments. Correct: They had to walk slowly because of Sarah’s bad hip.

Participial Phrase Fragments

Incorrect: Worrying about money.

In this example, we have a participial phrase that seems to have broken off from a complete sentence. We don’t know who is doing the worrying or what impact it has. To correct this, we need to fully develop the thought.

Correct: Worrying about money ruined their marriage. Correct: Monica was tired of worrying about money.

Infinitive Phrase Fragments

Incorrect: To find El Dorado.

An infinitive is a verb plus the word “to.” In the example above, “to find” is the infinitive. On its own, an infinitive phrase doesn’t constitute a complete thought.

Correct: Many explorers risked their lives to find El Dorado. Correct: To find El Dorado, many explorers risked their lives.

Are Fragments Ever Okay?

As with most rules of English grammar, there is an exception. Sometimes sentence fragments can be used stylistically—but don’t abuse the privilege. Stylistic fragments belong in informal writing or creative work, and even then they should be used sparingly. They can be used to increase tension in a scene or to convey narrative tone, but too many fragments dilute the effect.

Example: Running through the trees. Gasping for breath. They were close. Too close. She wasn’t going to make it.

Example: If John didn’t find a job soon, he was going to be out on the street. He’d tried everywhere—temp agencies, bookstores, libraries. Even Dairy Queen. Nothing. Not even a nibble.

Most of the time, automated spell-checkers don’t discriminate between intentional sentence fragments and mistakes, so you’ll have to use your best judgment. For more tips on identifying and correcting sentence fragments, another great resource is Purdue’s Online Writing Lab.

#Yodify your Grammar

With the arrival of the anniversary of the initial release of the first Star Wars movie, we at Grammarly started to reflect on what makes the films so great. Being language lovers and word nerds at heart, we are particularly fascinated and charmed by the grammar of the great Jedi master, Yoda. To celebrate our love of Star Wars, we dissected a few classic Yoda-style quotes in order to better understand the patterns that #yodify the English language.

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A Grammar and Style Guide to #Yodify Your Language

 INVERTED WORD ORDER

“Powerful you have become. The dark side I sense in you.”

In Yoda-speak, modifiers (adjectives, adverbs, and modifying clauses) as well as objects often come before rather than after the subject and verb in a sentence. But the sentence doesn’t become completely scrambled:

“If into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find.”

Note that “if” is still placed at the very beginning of the sentence, as it would be in proper English.

FLEXIBLE SUBJECT-VERB ORDER

“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained.”

In most cases, Yoda gets the subject-verb order right for English—subject then verb. Sometimes, however, he switches the order of verbs and subjects. This tells us that the placement of subjects and verbs in Yoda’s native language is much more fluid than in English.

MISSING AUXILIARY IN NEGATION and LACK OF CONTRACTIONS

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not.”

When Yoda wants to negate a verb he does something peculiar—he omits the helping verb “to do” and instead places “not” after the verb. “Size does not matter” becomes “Size matters not.” Curiously, Yoda’s phrasing is perfectly standard English when the main verb is “to do,” as in “Do or do not. There is no try.” In fact, one can say that Yoda learned the correct way to negate “to do” and “to be” (e.g. “I am not”) and applies that construction consistently to all verbs.

Additionally, English teachers and lovers of formal writing should be proud that—despite his other mistakes—at least Yoda never used a contraction. Every “don’t” or “won’t” or “shouldn’t” for Yoda was a do not, will not, or a should not.

DROPPED AUXILIARY IN PRESENT TENSE QUESTIONS

“Ready are you? What know you of ready?”

Many ESL learners struggle with the added “do” in English questions. As with his removal of “do” in most negations, Yoda often drops the “do” in questions; he forms questions with the interrogative pronoun, followed by the subject and verb (occasionally inverted). “Where do you go?” becomes “Where go you?” and “Why do you say that?” becomes “Why that you say?” For other tenses, the auxiliary “do” remains, but often the word order is inverted.

 

If to #Yodify something you want, follow these main rules you must:

1. Move your modifiers, modifier phrases, and objects in front of your subject-verb phrase.

2. Swap your subject-verb order.

3. Drop the auxiliary “do” when negating most verbs and place the negation after the verb.

4. Do not use contractions.

5. Drop the auxiliary “do” in present tense questions.

 

Check out some of our favorite quotes in literature, #Yodified:

“Across the sky a screaming comes.” (Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow)

“A bright and cold day in April it was, and the clocks thirteen were striking.” (George Orwell, 1984)

“The best of times it was, the worst of times it was.” (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

“You know not about me, without a book by the name of Adventures of Tom Sawyer you have read; but no matter it is.” (Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

“The saddest story have I heard, this is.” (Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier)

“The moment English one learns, set in complications do.” (Felipe Alfau, Chromos)

 

What are your favorite literary quotes, #Yodified? Share in the comments!

Anytime vs. Any Time

A century ago, it was standard to write any time as two words in all contexts. But it’s now perfectly acceptable to write anytime as one word when you’re using it as an adverb. However, some readers still consider it a casualism, so you may want to stick to the two-word version for extremely formal writing.

• When in doubt, write any time as two words. It might look a little old-fashioned, but it won’t be wrong.
• Anytime is an adverb that means “whenever” or “at any time.” You can use it like you would any other adverb: Call me anytime. Call me often. Call me quickly.
• You can’t use anytime with a preposition like at. If you have a preposition, you need the two-word version: They could call at any time.
• You also need the two-word version when you’re talking about an amount of time: Do you have any time to speak to us today?

When Is Anytime One Word?

You can write anytime as one word or as two words when you are using it as an adverb.

I am available anytime if you’d like me to help you with your novel.

I am available any time if you’d like me to help you with your novel.

My new bicycle allows me to go anywhere, anytime.

My new bicycle allows me to go anywhere, any time.

If you’re not sure whether you’re using anytime as an adverb, try substituting some other adverb like “quickly” or “loudly.” My new bicycle allows me to go anywhere quickly. If the adverb works, then it’s OK to make anytime one word. You can also make it two words, but to some readers it will look old-fashioned or more formal.

You can also use anytime (or any time) as a conjunction.

Anytime the sun went down, we’d go for a night-swim.

Any time the sun went down, we’d go for a night-swim.

There’s no difference in meaning.

When Is Any Time Two Words?

There are a couple of cases where you have to make any time two words.

Any time has to be two words when you use it with a preposition like “at.”

You can call me at any time of the day, even at night.

You can call me at anytime of the day, even at night.

You also have to make any time two words when you’re talking about an amount of time.

Do you have any time to speak with us today?

Do you have anytime to speak with us today?

How to Write a Follow-up Email That Gets a Response: 7 Action Tips

If only the people you emailed would answer every time. Unfortunately, many of your emails are destined to go unanswered. The average email user receives ninety-two emails per day (seventeen of which are likely to be spam) and opens only about one in three. If you want to make yourself heard in a noisy digital world, being able to write a compelling follow-up email is an essential skill.

Although a follow-up about a job application will look quite different from one asking for a charitable donation, here are seven tips that apply no matter what sort of email you’re crafting.

1Take time to create an attention-getting subject line

Half the battle when it comes to getting a response is getting your email opened in the first place. The average open rate for emails is 34 percent. Although the odds are stacked against your lowly digital missive, you can improve them by investing extra time into creating a subject header that’s difficult to ignore. While there are exceptions to every rule, these strategies are known to get results:

• Keep it short. Forty percent of emails are opened on mobile. Short subject lines are less likely to get cut off.
• Use concise language. Get your inner Hemingway on and don’t waste words. Cut weasel words and filler.
• Ask a question. Emails with questions in their subject lines can impel readers to open the message, either to search for the answer or to provide one.
• Don’t get salesy. Create interest without resorting to hyperbole. Would you want to open an email you suspected was nothing more than a sales pitch?
• Try a headline analyzer. While tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer are meant for article headlines, they work well for checking email subject lines, too.

By the way, it’s important that your subject line reflect your email’s objective, which brings us to our next tip.

2 Know your objective, then stick to the subject

What are you trying to accomplish with your follow-up email? It’s important to have a desired outcome in mind so you can keep your email focused on achieving it. Are you writing to ask for a meeting? Request a status update? Ask a favor? Say thanks? Whatever your goal, everything from your subject line to your message body to your sign-off should help you reach that goal.

Don’t stray off on any tangents before you’ve gotten a response to your email and engaged in a conversation, even if, ultimately, your request will have lots of moving parts.

For instance, let’s say you’re following up on a job application. Your brain may be turning over all sorts of big-picture issues like your salary requirements or availability. But before you can talk about any of those things you have to accomplish just one—get an interview. That means your follow-up email should be laser focused on providing only the information that will convince a potential employer to offer you an interview. Don’t throw in side notes that will muddy the waters.

3 Use the right salutation

When you’re writing a prospective employer to follow up on your application, always use:

Dear [Name],

In fact, in any sort of formal email it’s appropriate to begin with “Dear” rather than “Hi.” “Hey” is arguably the most informal salutation of them all, so save it for when you’re corresponding with someone you know and have a friendly relationship with.

Here’s a tip: When you’re writing a formal business email, it’s traditional to follow “Dear” with a colon rather than a comma.

4 Open with some context

Even if your follow-up email is threaded and contains your original email, it’s still a good practice to include a sentence or two of context.

Dear Bob,

The upcoming mobile app, Awesomest Thing Ever, is in beta. I wrote last week to ask whether you’d like to be one of the first to take it for a test drive.

It’s not necessary to reiterate everything; just highlight what’s crucial. Ask yourself, “What’s the bare minimum my recipient must understand so that the rest of my email makes sense?”

5 Personalize it

Add a personal touch to your emails whenever you can. If you met the recipient at a conference, say so. If you read an article they’ve written, mention your favorite takeaway. If you’ve interviewed with them for a job, reference a highlight from the interview.

I was inspired by what you said about Excellent Company’s branding strategy. Not only does your vision closely match my own, but I feel I could learn and grow as a part of your team.

The key is to sound friendly but not smarmy. Personalization shouldn’t involve random name-dropping. It should help establish your connection with the recipient. Don’t force it.

6 Don’t be vague

Your first email might not have gotten a response because you didn’t clearly state its purpose. Your follow-up email affords you a chance to correct that.

Journalists receive a ton of pitch emails daily from PR representatives who want them to cover a story. One of their pet peeves, and the thing most likely to cause them to delete an email, is having no clue what that email is actually about. As Matthew Hughes wrote for The Next Web:

The best pitches I get are the ones where I can understand the product or story after reading just one paragraph. Drop the jargon and the braggadocio – just keep it short and simple.

Whether you’re following up on a pitch or a request for a meeting, be specific and state clearly what you want to happen.

I wish to discuss collaboration perspectives with you.

You’d like to what, now? What does “collaboration perspectives” even mean?

I’d like to write an article for your blog, and I hope you’ll write one for mine in return.

Oooh! Now we get it.

7 Include a call to action

If you want the recipient to respond to your email, in most cases you’re going to have to ask for it. That request is called a call to action.

CTAs are a marketing tool, but they’re important in email follow-ups, as well. They point your recipient toward the next step, which in turn prompts a response. Here are a few examples.

Request a meeting

I’d like to meet for lunch and ask you a few questions about Mega Corp’s email strategy. Would Tuesday at noon work?

Ask for feedback

I know you have great insight to offer when it comes to [topic.] Would you take a few moments to share your feedback?

Solicit a sale, donation, or subscription

Reveal your mystery coupon

Donate by [date] and [Company] will match your donation!

Subscribe today to stay in the loop!

After a job interview

I thought I’d pass along links to the clips I mentioned yesterday. Is there anything else you’d like me to send?

Keeping it simple isn’t always simple

Now that you’ve learned some of the tricks to writing a great follow-up email, you face one more challenge—keeping it short and sweet. (A study by the email app Boomerang showed that emails between seventy-five and one hundred words have the best response rates.)

The more concise your follow-up email, the longer it will probably take you to write it. Crafting emails that stick to the subject, clearly state a purpose, and include a compelling call to action is trickier than it seems. Practice makes perfect! Invest time into fine-tuning your follow-up emails and you’re sure to earn more replies.

5 Helpful Tips on How to Collaborate with Engineers

Engineers look at the world differently from non-engineers. They are usually extremely logical, pragmatic, and direct, while the rest of us can be somewhat more whimsical, emotional and aspirational. Unfortunately, when working together, these different perspectives present unique communication challenges that can slow work, deliver sub-optimal results, and weaken company culture if not addressed.

Collaborating effectively with an engineer means learning to communicate like an engineer.

I’m not talking about mastering engineer-speak. What I’m getting at is recognizing how sales, marketing, and support teams communicate differently from engineering teams and adapting your communication style when working with engineers.

Here are some basics for collaborating and communicating productively with engineers.

Tips for Talking to Engineers

1 Build sincere trust.

This should be obvious, but healthy, productive relationships require trust. Day-to-day, you build trust with your immediate team members, you may not realize it. In fact every time you solve a problem together, talk about your weekend together, or achieve a goal together, you are contributing to the trust in your team relationships.

Many times, however, we do not have the same experiences with the engineers we need to work with and don’t have the same protective trust that supports our communication. To this end, it’s helpful to invest a little time getting to know the engineers: ask them how their weekend was, ask them what they’re working on, invite them for coffee. Little, sincere actions every day go a long way to ensure trustful working relationships that have a bit of protection if misunderstandings arise.

2 Include engineers in your brainstorms.

One of the most frustrating situations at work for everyone—including engineers—is when it seems someone is telling you how to do your work. Unfortunately, this happens often with engineers because they are not regularly included in initial brainstorms. What this means is often we come up with solutions that are not realistic or practical from an engineering perspective. We write up specs and set up meetings to pitch our solution to the engineers, only to find out that it won’t work. This approach wastes time and money.

The simple solution is to include engineers from the beginning, ensuring you develop realistic and practical solutions and that you have buy-in from the engineering team. However, it’s not enough just to invite them to the brainstorm and still pitch them your solution. A much better approach is to ask them for their solutions. Tell them the problem you want to solve and see what they come up with.

3Listen.

This tip is straightforward and piggybacks nicely on the previous suggestion.

Here’s a tip: Talk with engineers instead of to them.

Ask questions, stay open-minded, and be ready to discuss options.

4Respect their time.

This is office politeness 101 and goes for everyone. But it’s especially important with engineers who are often working without a project manager or a CTO. These developers usually juggle many projects for different teams, and they alone are responsible for those outcomes. Time is precious. To get the most of your time with an engineer, it’s important that you schedule and prepare for a meeting.

How to Structure a Meeting with an Engineer

• Clarify ownership—make sure you’re talking to the best person to help you.
• Put the meeting on the calendar.
• Send an outline or an agenda in advance.
• Avoid small talk.
• Ask about a solution instead of giving it.
• Discuss options and trade-offs.
• Determine next steps and deadlines.

5 Learn to speak their language.

The workplace today is increasingly diverse. It’s important to understand not just differences in professional expertise but also in culture that may influence your communication choices at work. I’m not suggesting you need to learn another language, but it is helpful to speak the same language on a similar level. There are numerous strategies on how to communicate well across cultures. However, negotiating this layer of communication does not have to be complicated—simply use plain language.

Plain Language Tips

• Avoid jargon, idioms, and complicated phrasing.
• Speak slowly.
• Speak one at a time.
• Stop and check that everyone is on the same page.

When it comes to communicating well with engineers, a lot of the rules that work for just about everyone also work for them. If you spend some time getting to know your engineers, build trust, respect their time with planning, and respect their expertise by asking questions and including them in developing solutions, collaborating with engineers is easy.

14 Business Jargon Phrases People Love To Hate

When humans aggregate into groups, we tend to develop new lexicons specific to our group context. Wizards complain about “muggles,” high schoolers aspire to “squad goals”—and occasionally a mid-level manager stares fervently into your eyes and tells you it’s time to “shift the paradigm.”

In recent years business jargon has somehow evolved into a tangled mess of annoying, pretentious, tired clichés that are more effective at obscuring than clarifying meaning.

If you haven’t guessed already, this post is for all you noble crusaders against jargon (a.k.a. “haters”) who have had enough of “moving the needle,” “idea showers,” and “putting your ducks in row.” Whether you’re a jargon-hater or you consider it a necessary (if annoying) part of office life, take a moment during your “bio break” to enjoy our list of the worst workspeak phrases we love to hate.

via GIPHY

1Low-Hanging Fruit

Are you skipping blithely through an orchard, plucking apples for your grandmother’s pie? No? We didn’t think so. This ridiculous phrase is all about going for the quick fix and the easy win in order to get immediate results. So go ahead and put all the hard stuff on the “back burner”—there’s zero chance that could come back to bite you, right?

2Leverage

Mind-numbingly overused, and a favorite of managers attempting to “climb the ladder.”

“Leveraging our goodwill with millennials will help us increase sales.”

Please, quit deluding yourself. Incessantly using “leverage” as a verb does not increase our estimation of your intelligence.

3Open the Kimono

One of the stranger artifacts of office lingo, “open the kimono” means to reveal information or secrets, such as the inner workings of a company or the details of a project. If being low-key racist and sexist doesn’t turn you off, this phrase is also exceptionally creepy.

4Giving 110%

A hyperbolic phrase synonymous with “going above and beyond.” Translation: “We’d like you to work fourteen-hour days for the next two weeks because of an arbitrary decision the CEO made.” Unless you’re a professional athlete or Little League coach, this phrase should not be in your vocabulary.

5Learnings

One of the most heinous buzzwords to crawl out of the office petri dish.

“On this next slide I’ll share my main learnings from the conference.”

Please, don’t ever share your “learnings” with us, just tell us what you learned. #MakeLearningAVerbAgain

6Out of Pocket

A term with dubious etymology meaning “I won’t be available.”

“I’ll be out of pocket this week. You can reach out to my assistant with any urgent requests.”

Okay, enough with the abysmal out-of-office messages. For those of you who would like to make a positive impression, here are ten out of office messages you’ll want to copy.

7Drink the Kool-Aid

Meaning to unquestioningly buy into something, such as a company’s “mission.” This common idiom originated from the mass suicide-massacre of 1978 when over 900 members of the Jonestown commune were forced to drink poisoned Flavor Aid by their crazed leader. So, maybe you should stop casually referencing horrific tragedies during your board meetings.

8Bio Break

An annoying and unnecessary euphemism for taking a bathroom break during a meeting. Seriously, all you need to do is announce a ten-minute break. You can spare us the details.

9Blue Sky Thinking

Thinking “outside the box” wasn’t enough. Your new imperative is to think in a way that is so exceptionally creative that you are unbound by the constraints of convention, common sense, or even reality. It’s all blue sky up there, baby!

10Tiger Team

A group of specialists assembled to tackle a particular problem.

“The Tiger Team is working to get the pension problem under control.”

Stop kidding yourself. Unless you’re an elite government hacker (the origin of the term) or you’re wearing tights and shouting “Thundercats, Hooo!” you are not in a Tiger Team.

11Idea Shower or Thought Shower

A brainstorm, but apparently with no brains required. Please keep your “thought showers” to yourself, thank you very much.

12Moving the Goalposts

Changing an expectation or parameter of an ongoing project, making the project more difficult to complete.

“If our client keeps moving the goalposts, we won’t be able to deliver their report on time!”

This is also a great way to cheat at games in your backyard, when you’re a child.

“Mom! Benny moved the goalposts again! It’s not fair!”

13Drill Down

To investigate something in detail. Synonymous with the equally insufferable “let’s unpack that” and “peeling the onion.”

14Gain Traction

An infuriatingly overused buzzword meaning “to gain popularity.”

“Our new SeeFood app has failed to gain traction, we’ve only had twelve downloads.”

Who knows, maybe you would gain more traction if you didn’t use such terrible business jargon all the time.

It’s your turn to weigh in! Circle back with the business jargon you dislike the most.

via GIPHY

How to Use Assure vs. Ensure vs. Insure

• To assure someone is to remove someone’s doubts.
• To ensure something is to make sure it happens—to guarantee it.
• To insure something or someone is to cover it with an insurance policy.

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Some sources note that people use assure, ensure, and insure interchangeably. All three verbs have something to do with “making sure” and are therefore similar, but each of them has a distinct meaning that makes it better suited for some uses than the other two. So they might not be an interchangeable trio so much as they are simply commonly confused words.

What Does Assure Mean?

Assure is something you would do to a person or an animal. These beings can have doubts or insecurities you can remove by assuring them, by giving them assurance:

I assure you, we will get to the play on time.

Tom locked the door, assuring Tim that their dog wouldn’t be able to wander out during the night.

In the United Kingdom and other countries of the Commonwealth, the word assurance can also refer to a particular type of insurance:

I’m thinking about taking out a life assurance policy.

What Does Ensure Mean?

When you ensure something, you’re making sure it is going to happen:

I need to study more to ensure I get a passing grade.

He scored thirty-five points last night, ensuring that his team will have a place in the finals.

What Does Insure Mean?

To insure something or someone is to cover it with an insurance policy, a kind of agreement that states that if something happens to someone or something that’s insured, the insurance company will provide compensation:

I don’t want to insure my car, but the law says I have to.

The insurance company said they won’t insure our house against floods.

Examples

Sportswear manufacturer BLK’s receivers have moved to assure the company’s customers it will be “business as usual” amid uncertainty among professional sporting outfits.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Beyond the numbers, California’s electric vehicles policies are leading the way by ensuring that low-income communities benefit from zero tailpipe emissions.

The Sacramento Bee

This means drivers, now typically paying around £50 a year to the Treasury when they insure their car, will see it rise to above £60.

The Guardian