Are sentence fragments grammatically incorrect, or a stylistic choice? - General

For instance, take this sentence. "Carr chose to block out his friendly neighbor in favor of watching a TV show on a small MP3 player at the back of the bus all by himself." Now, I could rephrase it like this: "Carr chose to block out his friendly neighbor in favor of watching a TV show on a small MP3 player at the back of a bus. Alone." It holds more weight and hits harder that way, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Thoughts?

Guess what? Fuck it.

Depends on what kind of material the author writes.

You could just simplify it by just saying "Carr is a lonely faggot who watches TV shows on MP3 players"

Carr = Antisocial. Fix'd.

[QUOTE=Zedo Mann;20272177]Carr = Antisocial. Fix'd.[/QUOTE] I know that, but my point is that we're using technology as an excuse to justify our isolation from others. To put it another way, we're choosing to be alone. Which is why saying it my way works better. :v:

I wouldn't use it all the time while writing, only near the beginning, as a dramatic introduction to pull the reader into the story.

Depends on what you're writing about. If it's an essay, then no. For a story, then sure.

It's a stylistic choice, but I wouldn't do it every other sentence. Unless you're trying to be Chuck Palahniuk.

[img]http://thesamerowdycrowd.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/rorschach.jpg[/img] Hrm.

Grammatically, it is incorrect, but it is accepted in the literary world because an author can do whatever he/she wants with their own work.

grammatically incorrect also makes your writing look amateurish

Sentence Fragments make my English professor red in the face, and he will let you know his opinion on them with gusto.

It's an academic essay. I can't help that I write that way, though. I do kind of write like Palahniuk. >> I took it out of my paper, though. I can tell it won't go over well.

I don't know what OP.

My friend has been trying to get a visceral reaction out of our TA for the entire semester. He finally managed it yesterday and I've never laughed that hard. We had our conferences, so we each meet with the TA for like 20 minutes and she gives us paper suggestions and stuff. He had met with her for office hours two days before, so he didn't really need advice. He decided to get a reaction. The first paragraph of his paper described, in detail, how to kill and cook a goose. The first line of a paper about identity and technology was "First you snap its neck." He tied it in beautifully, too, so she couldn't complain. It was an accurate analogy. But her face when she read his paper was just priceless.

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Not good for an essay.

Yeah it's perfectly fine to do it that way.

[QUOTE=franz;20273221]Chuck Palahniuk does it and he's a great writer.[/QUOTE] Yeah but if he gave an English teacher Fight Club to grade he'd fail out of school. I write like it too, but it's near impossible to get away with academically. And I know it adds emphasis, that's why I was going to use it. It felt right, but I don't want to risk it if it's not a good idea.

Fragment, consider revising.

[QUOTE=Zinayzen;20272115]For instance, take this sentence. "Carr chose to block out his friendly neighbor in favor of watching a TV show on a small MP3 player at the back of the bus all by himself."[/QUOTE] When it's put like this "C@rr chos 2 blck out his frendly naybur n favr o watcn a show on da ipod in da back of da bus alone" then yes.

The way you put it, it makes it sound very odd. Maybe try adding some commas or something, such as, Carr chose to block out his friendly neighbor in favor of watching a TV show on a small MP3 player, alone at the back of the bus,. Or something along those lines. To me it sounds like you're trying to describe too many things. Try maybe to separate it into two sentences.

[QUOTE=Zinayzen;20273250]Yeah but if he gave an English teacher Fight Club to grade he'd fail out of school. I write like it too, but it's near impossible to get away with academically. And I know it adds emphasis, that's why I was going to use it. It felt right, but I don't want to risk it if it's not a good idea.[/QUOTE] It depends on the English class. English classes cover a huge spectrum of people, so they may be people who live by grammatical rules like their bible, or they may think that anything goes in order to communicate as effectively as you can, by any means.