Is the following grammatically correct? My friend says the second sentence is grammatically incorrect, but couldn't explain why.
I have always been fascinated by statistics. The different ways in
which you could look at data and infer knowledge from it.
Best Answer
Traditional grammar defines the sentence as 'a complete thought containing a subject and a predicate'. So by this definition the second 'sentence' is incorrect, but of course writers constantly break the rules of grammar to achieve a particular effect.
The problem I see with the 'sentence' is that it may lead the reader astray. He or she gets to the end of the string of words (a long noun phrase) thinking that they comprise the subject, but then the predicate is missing. This will possibly cause a backtrack to reread the first sentence in order to make sense of the whole. It's generally inconsiderate of your readers to make them do this.
(And no, I would not recommend breaking this traditional rule in an application letter.)