![]() ![]() Once again, we see that the two parts of the sentence, "Jack has great soccer skills" and "he is a great team man" are complete sentences. Both "Professor entered the class" and "students are waiting" are complete sentences in and of themselves and, thus, are independent clauses that cannot be joined by a comma.Įxample 2 - Jack has great soccer skills, he is a great team man. You see, these are two independent thoughts that can quite stand on their own. Let us illustrate through a few examples.Įxample 1 - Professor entered the class, students were waiting. The comma is considered too weak a punctuation to join two independent clauses. The error of comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined using a comma. If you could not identify the error, do not worry in this short article that is precisely what we shall be discussing. Professor entered the class, the students were waiting.Ĭan you see what is wrong with this sentence? It has a comma splice error. Let us begin by taking a look at the following sentence: If you understand one concept, the other will come to you naturally. If you want some further instruction on how to recognize this problem, please review the rules for conjunctive adverbs.A bit of good news to begin this article with, you will not have to understand comma splices and run-on sentences separately. To fix this sentence you’ll have to insert a period or a semi-colon before the conjunctive adverb. They connect separate sentences rather than two parts of the same sentence:Īccording to Swiss folklore, William Tell was an expert with a crossbow, in fact, he not only shot an apple off the head of his son, but he also assassinated the man who had ordered him to do so. These are words like however, moreover, and although. Probably the biggest cause of comma splices is the incorrect use of conjunctive adverbs. This is not recommended in formal prose, but it’s not uncommon in creative writing, especially in dialogue. When the main clauses in a sentence are very short, you can often get away with a comma splice. Since the rain has finally stopped, I think I will go for stroll. If, on the other hand, you want to make one clause more important than the other, you can use a subordinating conjunction: The rain has finally stopped, so I think I will go for stroll. If they do, you can use a coordinating conjunction: If you decide to use a conjunction (the last solution), you’ll have to decide if the clauses have equal weight. Use a semi-colon if you think the clauses are closely related.ģ. Simply put in a period (as in the example above).Ģ. Here they are, starting with the most common solution.ġ. There are three easy ways to fix comma splices and fused sentences. Others use it indiscriminately whenever they feel a sentence goes on a bit too long.įor the sake of clarity we will just talk about comma splices and fused sentences. For some people the term refers to any time two clauses are joined without a coordinating conjunction (so both comma splices and fused sentences), whereas others limit it to just fused sentences. Unfortunately, there is little agreement about what constitutes a run-on sentence. There is one more term that is sometimes used to describe these mistakes. ![]() In this case, the middle clause is mistakenly tied to both the first and last clause. Though I’m not inclined to visit the Red Light district, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Sometimes the dependent clause has been connected to two clauses instead of one:Īmsterdam is a beautiful city, though I’m not inclined to visit the Red Light district, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.ĭependent clause: though I’m not inclined to visit the Red Light district.Ĭorrect: Amsterdam is a beautiful city. Watch out for sentences with a dependent clause. ![]() Each clause is independent (it has at least a subject and a verb), but there is no grammatical connection between them. You can probably hear the break, and when you look closely you’ll notice that there is no conjunction that ties the two clauses together. You’ll notice these errors particularly if you read the following sentences aloud:Ĭomma splice: The rain has finally stopped, I think I will go for a stroll.įused sentence: The rain has finally stopped I think I will go for a stroll.Ĭorrect: The rain has finally stopped.
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