How to avoid sentence fragments

Sentence fragments are a common problem. They occur when a sentence does not have a main clause.

Study the sentence given below:

In countries like India, where the grades of the children have always been a symbol of status for the parents.

The above sentence does not have a main clause. There is a subordinate clause beginning with ‘where’.

A subordinate clause cannot stand alone. It must be attached to a principal or main clause.

Generally speaking, clauses beginning with a conjunction (because, as, since, though, when, while etc.) or a relative pronoun/adverb (who, which, that, where, what etc.) cannot stand alone. They must be attached to another clause that does not contain a conjunction.

So, the above sentence can be written as:

In countries like India, the grades of the children have always been a symbol of status for the parents.

Now we removed the relative adverb ‘where’ and the clause became a main clause.

Or we can write:

In countries like India where the grades of the children have always been a symbol of status for the parents, children are under tremendous pressure to perform.

The above sentence has two clauses.

where the grades of the children have always been a symbol of status for the parents (subordinate clause)

children are under tremendous pressure to perform (main clause)

As you can see, the main clause does not contain a conjunction. Every sentence must have at least one main clause.