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© Copyright 2001, Jim Loy
Incomplete sentences seem to becoming more popular in writing. This is typical:
The man had money. Lots of money.
"Lots of money" is not a complete sentence. In the past, that would have been one sentence, with a comma where the first period is. Well, the author wants a pause there, and a comma is ambiguous. Grammatically, the comma is required. And so, it may not tell the reader to pause. I would give this advice: use incomplete sentences whenever you want; but examine each one; see if you are doing it for a legitimate, effective reason. Overuse of this device (or similar examples of improper grammar) destroys its usefulness. I would say that there are several admirable uses of incomplete sentences:
It would seem that the command "Read this," is a complete sentence, as the subject "you" is implied: "You read this."