Sentence fragments

An independent clause is a string of meaningful words which has (at the very least) a subject (a person or thing or a concept) and a verb. It expresses a complete idea and can stand alone as a sentence.

All sentences must have at least one independent clause.
Here are two examples of good simple sentence.

Christina is writing her thesis.

I still don't understand the topic.

A sentence fragment is pretending to be a sentence, but it does not have all the necessary grammatical features to qualify as a sentence by itself. Sometimes the subject of the sentence might be missing, or (more usually) it is missing a main verb.

It is not acceptable in academic writing.
Read the sentence fragment below aloud. (You will find it difficult to read - think about why).

* The educational challenges with teaching Asian languages (such as Chinese) in an environment like Australia, with large classes, limited meaningful input and communication, and no immersion. * (NB: Red asterisks signal a problem with the sentence)

The below explain what can go wrong.

A dependent clause (or subordinate clauses) is a string of words (that might look like a sentence) but which fail to express a complete idea; it leaves us wanting more information in order to get the idea that is intended and is dependent on another clause within the sentence. Often the reason that these clauses are dependent is because the writer has added words called dependent markers to an ordinary complete clause (like has been done in the first of the examples below).

* Although Christina is writing her thesis ... * (NB: Asterisks signal a problem with the sentence)

I still don't understand the topic. In spite of having read four articles on it.

In order to fix this problem, we need to add another (independent) clause. Look at how we've done this below.

Although Christina is writing her thesis, she took time out at Christmas to visit her family.

I still don't understand the topic, in spite of having read four articles on it.

It doesn't usually matter which order you place them in, as long as you don't expect a dependent clause to exist without its independent one.

Other types of sentence fragment: There are other ways that dependent clauses can be formed (whether accidentally or intentionally). Note how the following leave us wanting more information in order to get the idea that is intended. These are not sentences on their own.

* Having just written her thesis ... *

* Most modern televisions producing heat. *

Here is another common student error:
For example, socio-cultural theory in combination with humanist theory leading to an eclectic approach to classroom management. 

What the student has done here is assume that the verb from the previous sentence can do the work for this clause too—they try to borrow against the verb of the previous sentence, or they expect the reader to infer the verb from context. We sometimes do this when speaking, but we must not leave our subject and verb out of our sentences in writing. Look at the following examples:

Janet left her revision quite late. * Two days before the exam. *

* Rubbish thrown everywhere. *