This exercise offers practice in identifying and correcting needless sentence fragments during the editing stage of the writing process.
Instructions
The following descriptive paragraph contains three needless sentence fragments. First, identify the three fragments, and then correct each one--either by attaching it to an adjacent sentence or by turning the fragment itself into a complete sentence. When you are done, compare your corrected sentences with those in the edited version of the paragraph below.
Anthony (unedited draft)
My five-year-old son Anthony is built like a little wind-up toy. His black curly hair, bushy eyebrows, a cute button nose, and chubby cheeks, which people can't resist pinching. These make him look like a life-size teddy bear. Anthony loves to wear his favorite black leather jacket with the picture of the Skoal Bandit on the back. And jeans with patches on the knees as a result of the holes he puts in them while crawling on the floor, pushing his toy cars around. Indeed, he is a very energetic little boy. In one afternoon, he will ride his bicycle, play video games, complete a 200-piece jigsaw puzzle, and, of course, play with his toy cars. In fact, his energy scares me sometimes. For example, that time on the roof. He shinnied up a tree and jumped onto the roof. However, he wasn't energetic (or bold) enough to climb back down, and so I had to rescue my wonderful little wind-up toy.
Anthony (edited version)
My five-year-old son Anthony is built like a little wind-up toy. He has black curly hair, bushy eyebrows, a cute button nose, and chubby cheeks, which people can't resist pinching. These make him look like a life-size teddy bear. Anthony loves to wear his favorite black leather jacket with the picture of the Skoal Bandit on the back and his favorite jeans, the ones with patches on the knees. The patches cover the holes that came about from crawling on the floor, pushing his toy cars around. Indeed, he is a very energetic little boy. In one afternoon, he will ride his bicycle, play video games, complete a 200-piece jigsaw puzzle, and, of course, play with his toy cars. In fact, his energy scares me sometimes. For example, I will never forget that time he shinnied up a tree and jumped onto the roof. However, he wasn't energetic (or bold) enough to climb back down, and so I had to rescue my wonderful little wind-up toy.
