大多数写作手册坚持认为不完整的句子或片段是需要纠正的错误。正如托比·富勒（Toby Fulwiler）和艾伦·早川（Alan Hayakawa）在《布莱尔手册》（Prentice Hall，2003）中所说，“片段的问题在于其不完整性。一个句子表达了一个完整的想法，但片段忽略了告诉读者它是关于什么（主题）或发生了什么（动词）”（第464页）。在正式写作中，禁止使用片段通常是有道理的。

但并非总是如此。无论是在小说还是非小说中，句子片段都可能被有意地用来创造各种强大的效果。

思想碎片

在J.M.库切的小说《耻辱》（塞克和沃伯格，1999年）的中途，主人公经历了对他女儿家的野蛮袭击所带来的震惊。入侵者离开后，他试图接受刚刚发生的事情：

It happens every day, every hour, every minute, he tells himself, in every quarter of the country. Count yourself lucky to have escaped with your life. Count yourself lucky not to be a prisoner in the car at this moment, speeding away, or at the bottom of a donga with a bullet in your head. Count Lucy lucky too. Above all Lucy. A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes. Not enough to go around, not enough cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few things. What there is must go into circulation, so that everyone can have a chance to be happy for a day. That is the theory; hold to this theory and to the comforts of theory. Not human evil, just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant. That is how one must see life in this country: in its schematic aspect. Otherwise one could go mad. Cars, shoes; women too. There must be some niche in the system for women and what happens to them. reflect

叙述性和描述性片段

查尔斯·狄更斯（Charles Dickens）的《匹克威克文件》（The Pickwick Papers，1837）中，流氓阿尔弗雷德·金格尔（Alfred Kingle）讲述了一个可怕的故事，今天可能会被贴上城市传奇的标签。叮当声以一种奇怪的支离破碎的方式讲述了这件轶事：

"Heads, heads--take care of your heads!" cried the loquacious stranger, as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the entrance to the coach-yard. "Terrible place--dangerous work--other day--five children--mother--tall lady, eating sandwiches--forgot the arch--crash--knock--children look round--mother's head off--sandwich in her hand--no mouth to put it in--head of a family off--shocking, shocking!"

丁格尔的叙事风格让人想起著名的《荒凉之家》（1853）的开幕式，其中狄更斯用了三段描写伦敦雾的印象派作品：“雾气笼罩着愤怒的船长下午的烟斗杆和碗，笼罩在他那狭小的船舱里；在这两段文字中，作者更关心的是传达感觉和创造情绪，而不是在语法上完成一个想法。

一系列说明性片段

Pale druggists in remote towns of the Epworth League and flannel nightgown belts, endlessly wrapping up bottles of Peruna. . . . Women hidden away in the damp kitchens of unpainted houses along the railroad tracks, frying tough beefsteaks. . . . Lime and cement dealers being initiated into the Knights of Pythias, the Red Men or the Woodmen of the World. . . . Watchmen at lonely railroad crossings in Iowa, hoping that they'll be able to get off to hear the United Brethren evangelist preach. . . . Ticket-sellers in the subway, breathing sweat in its gaseous form. . . . Farmers plowing sterile fields behind sad meditative horses, both suffering from the bites of insects. . . . Grocery-clerks trying to make assignations with soapy servant girls. . . . Women confined for the ninth or tenth time, wondering helplessly what it is all about. . . . Methodist preachers retired after forty years of service in the trenches of God, upon pensions of $600 a year.

收集而不是连接，这些简短的零碎的例子提供了悲伤和失望的快照。

破烂

尽管这些段落不同，但它们说明了一个共同点：片段并非天生就坏。尽管严格规范的语法学家可能会坚持认为所有的片段都是等待被驱除的恶魔，但专业作家们对这些破烂的散文片段更为宽容。他们还找到了一些富有想象力的方法来有效地利用碎片。

30多年前，温斯顿·韦瑟斯（Winston Weathers）以另一种风格：作文中的选项（现已绝版）为写作教学提出了一个超越严格定义正确性的有力论据。他认为，学生应该接触到各种各样的风格，包括库切、狄更斯、门肯和无数其他作家所使用的“杂色的、不连续的、支离破碎的”形式。

也许是因为“片段”通常等同于“错误”，韦瑟斯重新引入了术语crot，一个古老的“比特”词，来描述这种故意分割的形式。列表、广告、博客和短信的语言。越来越普遍的风格。像任何设备一样，经常工作过度。有时使用不当。

所以这并不是对所有碎片的庆祝。使读者厌烦、分心或困惑的不完整句子应予以纠正。但也有一些时候，无论是在拱门下还是在一个孤独的铁路交叉口，碎片（或低沉的声音或无意义的句子）都能很好地发挥作用。的确，总比罚款好。

另请参见：为片段、crot和无动词句子辩护。