>> Welcome to a Sacramento City College Writing Center workshop
on run-ons, fragments, and comma splices.
Before we start talking about what run-ons, fragments,
and comma splices are, we want to talk about some definitions
of different parts of speech and parts of sentences.
So let's get in to those first, so we can talk
about everything else without too much trouble.
A subject is a part of a sentence
that tells us what's being discussed,
described or dealt with.
It's usually going to be a noun or a noun phrase.
It's the "who" when we're talking
about who's doing something in the sentence.
Verbs are action words and they tell us what's happening,
so what is the subject doing.
And prepositions are words that tell us the relationships
between things, whether one thing is on top of another
or underneath it or by it or between it, inside of,
outside of, things like that.
A clause is a group of words that has a subject
and a predicate, a predicate is a verb
and any additional information
that makes us understand that verb.
A dependent clause is a clause that can't stand alone.
It's not a complete thought, it's not a complete sentence,
so they have to be joined with something else
to make it a complete sentence.
And an independent clause is a clause that can stand by itself
as a complete sentence.
So it's complete idea.
Conjunctions are words that will connect ideas together.
They might tell us what the relationship
between those words is.
And FANBOYS are special kind of conjunction that are used
to help us coordinate two different sentences often
or a bunch of different ideas.
Those are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.
Each of those tells us a little bit of something
about what the connection between these ideas are.
All right, so now let's get into actually talking about run-ons,
fragments, and comma splices.
When we're combining sentences and clauses,
we can do a couple of things.
We have dependent clause and independent clause,
you can join them in a number of different ways.
So if you have a dependent clause
and then an independent clause, you put a comma right
after the dependent clause before the independent clause
and you put a period at the end.
If you do it in the other order
where the independent clause comes first
and then the dependent clause,
you don't need any extra punctuation except
for what goes at the end.
Two independent clauses can be joined together
in three different ways.
First is with a conjunction.
You put a comma and then the coordinating conjunction
and that will be again those FANBOYS, for, and,
nor, but, or, yet, so.
Let me just put those in between the two independent clauses
and make sure we put a comma before it.
You can also use a semicolon to join two independent clauses.
The semicolon tells us that the relationship
between the two sentences is very, very close.
It's so close that even pausing as long as we pause
for a period is too long of a pause.
We just can't even take that much to pause between ideas.
So you want to use semicolons pretty sparingly in your writing
but they can be really useful.
And then you can also just not join sentences together.
If you have two independent clauses, you can put a period
after the first one
and capitalize the second one and you're good.
No joining at all.
If you have a dependent clause, it must be joined to
or I'm sorry, if you have a dependent clause,
you must join it to an independent clause,
you cannot leave it alone,
that's what we get fragments from, all right?
So run-on sentences.
This is where we have two, three, four, sometimes more
than that independent clauses with no punctuation
or conjunctions or any other joining material between them.
So going to college is important for everybody,
no one should neglect studying.
We've got two complete ideas there.
Going to college, there's a subject, is, there's a verb,
important for everybody, that's our predicate.
That's a complete idea.
Going to college is important for everybody.
No one, subject, should, verb, neglect studying.
Another complete sentence.
So what we're going to do, put a period, capital letter.
We could have put a semicolon.
We could have done the number of different things,
so this is an easy way.
He went to the store because she forgot and he needed some milk.
So this one is little tricky.
We see we've got, he needed some milk,
that's a complete idea, right?
So is, she forgot and so is, he went to the store.
But we've got this word because in there and that tells is
that she forgot and he needed some milk are subordinate.
They're dependent clauses to he went to the store.
We don't need to do anything to the sentence because all
of this, because she forgot
and he needed some milk is a dependent clause.
Nobody wanted to go to the store but Mike went anyways.
Here, we've got two complete ideas.
Mike went anyways and nobody wanted to go to the store.
We've got a but, we just don't have a comma.
So all we have to do is add a comma there.
They weren't dangerous criminals,
they were detectives in disguise.
Here we've got two complete ideas, they and were
and weren't are subject and verbs.
Since these are so closely related, we're just going
to put a semicolon in between them.
Sentence fragments are groups of words that can't stand alone
but they're punctuated as though they are complete ideas.
A lot of times, this comes offering us a dependent clause
that doesn't have the independent clause
that goes with it.
For example, when I was going to Sac State
and that might be a good answer
if someone asked you the question verbally,
where did you live when you went to Sac or were going
to Sac State or when did you live in this place.
But because we don't know what the question was,
as a sentence standing on its own, it doesn't work.
We could just add when I was going to Sac State,
I live close to campus.
And that tells us enough information
to have a complete idea.
Another way that we get fragments is
from adding examples.
When we say such as this and that or for example,
the work I did, the places I lived
and the people I spent time with.
That might be really useful information for us to have
but it should probably be joined to the sentence before it.
So I told them a lot about me.
For example, the work I did, the places I lived
and the people I spent time with.
Growing up in the South gave him a strong accent.
So this is my trick one, it's a complete sentence.
Growing is a verb but in this case, it's being used as a noun.
So it's not an incomplete sentence, it's not a fragment,
it's actually a complete thought.
Growing up in the South is our subject, gave is our verb.
So growing up in the South gave him a strong accent,
complete idea.
Especially the families
that have been most affected by the flood.
This is another example of giving an example
and using it as complete sentence.
Almost always, you can just join that to the sentence
that came before in your paragraph.
So everyone wanted to go home especially the families
that have been most affected by the flood.
A cat chasing a dog, might be funny to watch
but it's not a complete sentence,
so we need so e kind of a verb.
It's pretty strange to see a cat chasing a dog
or we could say a cat is chasing a dog
and that would be another way to fix that.
To be a writer.
We don't have a subject there so we are in trouble
because we don't have an idea of who's going to be a writer,
what's going on with this.
So I would like to be a writer.
So now I'm having a subject and a verb to go with that.
Comma splices are very, very, very similar
to run-on sentences, in fact,
they are basically run-on sentences with extra commas.
So you've got two or more independent clauses and instead
of no punctuation between them, we just have a comma.
But we don't have a conjunction or any other kind of joiner.
So Andrew hit a deer, thankfully, no one was hurt.
We're just going to replace that first comma with a semicolon
and that will take care of the problem.
We build a spaceship, we have no idea how it works.
We've got the comma but we need to have that conjunction,
so here, we're going to show some contrast,
the first part says one type of information,
the other side tells us we're not really sure what we know--
that we know what to do with that information so we're going
to put a but in there.
While writing a personal story, she hoped people would like it.
So this is the tricksy one.
While writing a personal story, that's not a complete idea.
So this is actually completely correct because that comma needs
to be there, we have a dependent clause at beginning
so we put a comma after it, she hoped people would like it,
that's a complete idea so we don't need
to do anything to that sentence.
Sara gets married tomorrow,
yesterday was her last day at work.
Here, because these sentences aren't all that closely related,
we want to just separate them out, period, capital letter.
So now I'm going to offer you some time to do some practice.
I would suggest pausing for a couple of minutes while you go
through this because I'm only going to pause here
for about 10 seconds or so to give you a little bit of time
to hit the pause button.
Go through it, try to correct this,
some of them might not require correction.
All right.
So people who love technology celebrate the explosion
of free speech online; there is less focus
on how the internet could be regulated.
Well that's two complete ideas.
We've got people who love technology,
celebrate the explosion of free speech online.
There is less focus on how the internet could be regulated,
those are two complete ideas so we need some kind of punctuation
and a semicolon might work or period and a capital letter.
We could even do a comma a but, any of those would work.
When I show you these corrections,
remember that these are just one or two ways
that you could correct these sentences not the only ways you
could correct them.
Meghan, Liz and Jill went to the store and the gym.
So this one is completely correct.
There is only one subject even though the subject is made
up of three parts, so we've got Meghan,
Liz and Jill are three different people but there--
the whole subject, we could replace that with they,
so we know it's just one thing.
And it only has one predicate,
even though the subjects are going both to the store
and the gym, there's only one verb happening,
they went to the store and the gym.
All right.
Sam and Joe went to the store,
but they didn't have time to work out.
So we've got the conjunction, we just want
to put a comma before it.
When you have two complete ideas and you join them
with a conjunction, make sure you put that comma in there
and the comma goes before the conjunction.
It goes where you would have put a period at the end
of the first sentence, OK.
Writers often don't know when to stop writing.
They also sometimes don't have perfect grammar.
Just go put a period after writing and capitalize they,
we could probably put a semicolon there
but it's not entirely necessary.
You might notice that as I read this, I come to a natural pause
when I get to the end of my first independent clause
and that can be a way of checking to see
if you have a run-on sentence.
If you come to a natural pause
and you still got another compete idea after it,
that might be a good sign that you've got a run-on going on,
doesn't necessarily mean it but it's a good idea to check.
Writing a story about the end the world.
We we've got writing, it could be used as a subject
but it's also a verb, so it can be a subject
and we can use a verb to complete this thought.
We could say, writing a story about the end
of the world is depressing.
Or we could say I am writing a story
about the end of the world.
So we can use it as either the subject or the verb
but once we've chosen, we need to complete the sentence
by adding the other one which is missing.
If you don't know how to do your homework,
you should ask for help.
This one we've got another run-on or a comma splice
or even a fragment, we just have them incorrectly
punctuated sentence.
We've got a dependent clause starting it
if you don't know how to do your homework
and then we've got independent clause, you should ask for help.
So we're going to put a comma right
after that dependent clause.
All right.
So I'm going to pop up another set of practice
and I'll give you another 10 or 15 seconds to pause it and go
through this section as well.
OK. Going to Disneyland is really fun and expensive.
Again going is going to be our subject,
so going to Disneyland, subject.
Is, is our verb, so this is actually complete sentence.
We went last but can't afford to go again this year.
We is our subject and we have both went and can't as verbs.
Since we don't have two subjects,
it's not a compound sentence, it's not a sentence that we need
to add any punctuation to.
Maybe next year, we will be able to afford it again
but right now, I need to save money for school.
So two complete thoughts, we've got our coordinating conjunction
in the middle but, we just don't have a comma.
So we're just going to add that on.
By the time I get to Albuquerque,
she'll be up and around.
So we have an independent clause, she'll be up and around
and we have a dependent clause,
by the time I get to Albuquerque.
Since the dependent clause comes first,
we need to put a comma right after that dependent clause.
The apples fell far from the tree
and rolled a little farther.
This one is a trick, it's actually too many commas.
We don't need a comma after tree
because we have compound verb, they fell and rolled.
Just like the sentence we went last year but can't afford
to go this year, we have two verbs with one subject,
we don't need any commas.
The water began to fill the bowl and soon spilled
on to the table, the people seated
in the decked chairs started to squawk,
the chickens realized what was happening, the old man seated
in the window saw it all and wrote it
down just as it happened.
I think we can all tell that this is definitely
at very least a run-on.
We've got several independent clauses, four of them
and there's one comma, one period, that's not enough.
So one way to punctuate this would be the water began
to fill the bowl and soon spilled
on to the table, one sentence.
The people seated in the decked chairs started to squawk,
there's another sentence.
The chickens realized what was happening,
there's a third sentence.
The old man seated in the window saw it all and wrote it
down just as it happened.
So we can split that one into four complete sentences
that stand on their own.
These happen more often that we would like especially
when we're telling stories, so it's good
to double check and look for them.
If you're having trouble figuring out where your run-ons,
comma splices and fragments are, it is a good idea
to try reading your sentences out loud,
see if they make sense, see if you have both a subject
and a verb and all of your sentences.
If you have lots of subjects in the verbs in your sentence,
then it's a good idea to check and see
if maybe you have too many.
If you're having a lot of trouble figuring this out,
come into the Writing Center and we'll teach you some tricks
to go through your paper and find ways
of correcting your own paper.
Thank you for coming and have a great day.