Incomplete sentences as a writing style

When writing, better follow the rules of grammar.




In the OVERVIEW of a popular national English daily, it states, "In the eyes of Myanmar's military rulers, everyone is a potential enemy. Even foreign aid workers."

The statement consists of a sentence and a phrase.

Everybody knows that in writing especially a formal one, the message must be conveyed in a complete sentence or sentences.

However, nowadays incomplete sentences can be seen everywhere in articles, newspapers and even reference books guiding their users to better speaking and writing of the English language. This is perceived as a writing style not to bore the readers and aiming for clarity and emphasis; but clearly that is done at the expense of the basic grammatical rule.

This arguably effective style disregards that 'every sentence must have a full verb and can stand on its own', such rule having now become only the schoolroom rule, which, without any doubt, must nevertheless be observed by students.

In cases where you can use grammatical sentences to arrive at an effective style, why don't you follow the rules and be safe?

Like the aforesaid statement, it can be changed into a grammatical (or grammar-compliant) sentence without sacrificing clarity and emphasis: In the eyes of Myanmar's military rulers, everyone is a potential enemy - even foreign aid workers.

As can be seen, this is done by joining the sentence and the phrase by means of a dash which is used to suggest a note of surprise or an emphasis.