"Rules for Writers" Chapter 19

On Chapter 19 from “Rules for Writers” by Diana Hacker, she talks about sentence fragment.  Hacker explains how a sentence fragment must contain a full independent clause as it must contain a subject and a verb.  A sentence that is missing either a subject or a verb or begins with a subordinating word is consider a sentence fragment and must be submitted to revision.  During the revision of a sentence, it’s important not to confuse a verb with a verbal.  “A verbal is a verb form (such as walking, to act) that does not function as a verb of a clause.” (p. 149).  Hacker also explains how in some other languages a sentence may not need the presence of a subject or a verb but in English both are required with the exception of commands, for example, Get out.  A way to find some possible sentence fragment is using the grammar checker on your computer but just like spell checkers this are not eligible 100%.  On this chapter, Hacker also provides a solution to those sentence fragments, which is to attaching the fragment to a nearby sentence or turning them into sentences that could stand on their own.  Compound predicates are another way of solving a sentence fragment.  A compound predicate is the union of two predicates by a coordinating conjunction such as or, but, or and, since they both share one subject.  Finally, Hacker mentions how some fragments may be place to create one of the following: for emphasis, to answer, a question, as transition, exclamation, and in advertising.  

I understand my writing has various holes that I need to work on, such as, sentence fragments, the use of commas and semi colons, etc.  However, these could only improve with practice since the amount of times I could go over a specific subject would be useless without practice.  I would add the knowledge acquired from this chapter to the things to keep in mind on my everyday writing as this would help me to get better.