Copywriting Grammar: Sentence Fragments

Copywriting Grammar: Sentence Fragments

 

In my introduction, “Does It Matter,” I briefly touched on sentence fragments. One of my examples of bad sentence fragments was:

Brownies are delicious. While making you thinner. Cakes are delicious, too!

This is sort of an unlikely mistake, specifically because it’s so comical, but this type of mistake is prevalent. A more likely example might be:

Customers can enjoy our brownies. While losing weight.

The issue here is that the reader will think the thought ends with “brownies,” only to be confused upon reading the fragment.


 

Of course, some fragments work well. Knowing when to use fragments is important in conveying a clean and effective message. Why use more of your customer’s time than necessary?

Fun. Free. Ryan’s blog!

Just like the library, my blog is fun and free. Compare that very convincing statement with:

Ryan’s blog is fun and free.

The same idea is there, but it’s not as tight. With the individual words in the first example, the reader is asked to pay special attention to each adjective. In the second example, however, the reader may simply glaze over the ending, not really absorbing the message.