WEBVTT

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>> Welcome to a Sacramento City
College Writing Center workshop

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on run-ons, fragments,
and comma splices.

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Before we start talking about
what run-ons, fragments,

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and comma splices are, we want
to talk about some definitions

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of different parts of speech
and parts of sentences.

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So let's get in to those
first, so we can talk

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about everything else
without too much trouble.

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A subject is a part
of a sentence

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that tells us what's
being discussed,

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described or dealt with.

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It's usually going to be
a noun or a noun phrase.

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It's the "who" when
we're talking

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about who's doing
something in the sentence.

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Verbs are action words and
they tell us what's happening,

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so what is the subject doing.

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And prepositions are words
that tell us the relationships

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between things, whether one
thing is on top of another

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or underneath it or by it
or between it, inside of,

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outside of, things like that.

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A clause is a group of
words that has a subject

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and a predicate, a
predicate is a verb

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and any additional information

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that makes us understand
that verb.

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A dependent clause is a
clause that can't stand alone.

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It's not a complete thought,
it's not a complete sentence,

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so they have to be
joined with something else

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to make it a complete sentence.

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And an independent clause is a
clause that can stand by itself

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as a complete sentence.

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So it's complete idea.

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Conjunctions are words that
will connect ideas together.

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They might tell us
what the relationship

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between those words is.

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And FANBOYS are special kind
of conjunction that are used

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to help us coordinate two
different sentences often

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or a bunch of different ideas.

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Those are for, and, nor,
but, or, yet, and so.

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Each of those tells us a
little bit of something

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about what the connection
between these ideas are.

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All right, so now let's get into
actually talking about run-ons,

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fragments, and comma splices.

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When we're combining
sentences and clauses,

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we can do a couple of things.

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We have dependent clause
and independent clause,

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you can join them in a
number of different ways.

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So if you have a
dependent clause

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and then an independent
clause, you put a comma right

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after the dependent clause
before the independent clause

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and you put a period at the end.

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If you do it in the other order

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where the independent
clause comes first

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and then the dependent clause,

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you don't need any
extra punctuation except

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for what goes at the end.

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Two independent clauses
can be joined together

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in three different ways.

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First is with a conjunction.

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You put a comma and then
the coordinating conjunction

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and that will be again
those FANBOYS, for, and,

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nor, but, or, yet, so.

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Let me just put those in between
the two independent clauses

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and make sure we put
a comma before it.

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You can also use a semicolon to
join two independent clauses.

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The semicolon tells us
that the relationship

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between the two sentences
is very, very close.

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It's so close that even
pausing as long as we pause

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for a period is too
long of a pause.

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We just can't even take that
much to pause between ideas.

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So you want to use semicolons
pretty sparingly in your writing

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but they can be really useful.

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And then you can also just
not join sentences together.

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If you have two independent
clauses, you can put a period

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after the first one

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and capitalize the second
one and you're good.

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No joining at all.

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If you have a dependent
clause, it must be joined to

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or I'm sorry, if you
have a dependent clause,

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you must join it to
an independent clause,

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you cannot leave it alone,

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that's what we get
fragments from, all right?

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So run-on sentences.

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This is where we have two,
three, four, sometimes more

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than that independent
clauses with no punctuation

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or conjunctions or any other
joining material between them.

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So going to college is
important for everybody,

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no one should neglect studying.

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We've got two complete
ideas there.

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Going to college, there's a
subject, is, there's a verb,

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important for everybody,
that's our predicate.

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That's a complete idea.

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Going to college is
important for everybody.

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No one, subject, should,
verb, neglect studying.

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Another complete sentence.

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So what we're going to do,
put a period, capital letter.

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We could have put a semicolon.

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We could have done the
number of different things,

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so this is an easy way.

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He went to the store because she
forgot and he needed some milk.

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So this one is little tricky.

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We see we've got,
he needed some milk,

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that's a complete idea, right?

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So is, she forgot and so
is, he went to the store.

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But we've got this word because
in there and that tells is

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that she forgot and he needed
some milk are subordinate.

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They're dependent clauses
to he went to the store.

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We don't need to do anything
to the sentence because all

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of this, because she forgot

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and he needed some milk
is a dependent clause.

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Nobody wanted to go to the
store but Mike went anyways.

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Here, we've got two
complete ideas.

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Mike went anyways and nobody
wanted to go to the store.

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We've got a but, we
just don't have a comma.

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So all we have to do
is add a comma there.

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They weren't dangerous
criminals,

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they were detectives
in disguise.

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Here we've got two complete
ideas, they and were

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and weren't are subject
and verbs.

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Since these are so closely
related, we're just going

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to put a semicolon
in between them.

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Sentence fragments are groups
of words that can't stand alone

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but they're punctuated as
though they are complete ideas.

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A lot of times, this comes
offering us a dependent clause

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that doesn't have the
independent clause

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that goes with it.

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For example, when I
was going to Sac State

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and that might be a good answer

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if someone asked you
the question verbally,

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where did you live when you
went to Sac or were going

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to Sac State or when did
you live in this place.

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But because we don't know
what the question was,

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as a sentence standing on
its own, it doesn't work.

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We could just add when I
was going to Sac State,

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I live close to campus.

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And that tells us
enough information

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to have a complete idea.

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Another way that
we get fragments is

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from adding examples.

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When we say such as this
and that or for example,

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the work I did, the
places I lived

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and the people I
spent time with.

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That might be really useful
information for us to have

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but it should probably be joined
to the sentence before it.

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So I told them a lot about me.

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For example, the work I
did, the places I lived

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and the people I
spent time with.

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Growing up in the South
gave him a strong accent.

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So this is my trick one,
it's a complete sentence.

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Growing is a verb but in this
case, it's being used as a noun.

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So it's not an incomplete
sentence, it's not a fragment,

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it's actually a complete
thought.

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Growing up in the South is
our subject, gave is our verb.

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So growing up in the South
gave him a strong accent,

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complete idea.

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Especially the families

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that have been most
affected by the flood.

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This is another example
of giving an example

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and using it as complete
sentence.

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Almost always, you can just
join that to the sentence

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that came before
in your paragraph.

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So everyone wanted to go
home especially the families

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that have been most
affected by the flood.

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A cat chasing a dog,
might be funny to watch

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but it's not a complete
sentence,

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so we need so e kind of a verb.

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It's pretty strange to
see a cat chasing a dog

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or we could say a
cat is chasing a dog

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and that would be
another way to fix that.

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To be a writer.

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We don't have a subject
there so we are in trouble

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because we don't have an idea
of who's going to be a writer,

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what's going on with this.

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So I would like to be a writer.

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So now I'm having a subject
and a verb to go with that.

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Comma splices are very,
very, very similar

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to run-on sentences, in fact,

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they are basically run-on
sentences with extra commas.

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So you've got two or more
independent clauses and instead

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of no punctuation between
them, we just have a comma.

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But we don't have a conjunction
or any other kind of joiner.

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So Andrew hit a deer,
thankfully, no one was hurt.

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We're just going to replace that
first comma with a semicolon

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and that will take
care of the problem.

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We build a spaceship, we
have no idea how it works.

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We've got the comma but we
need to have that conjunction,

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so here, we're going
to show some contrast,

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the first part says one
type of information,

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the other side tells us we're
not really sure what we know--

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that we know what to do with
that information so we're going

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to put a but in there.

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While writing a personal story,
she hoped people would like it.

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So this is the tricksy one.

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While writing a personal story,
that's not a complete idea.

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So this is actually completely
correct because that comma needs

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to be there, we have a
dependent clause at beginning

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so we put a comma after it,
she hoped people would like it,

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that's a complete
idea so we don't need

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to do anything to that sentence.

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Sara gets married tomorrow,

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yesterday was her
last day at work.

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Here, because these sentences
aren't all that closely related,

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we want to just separate them
out, period, capital letter.

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So now I'm going to offer you
some time to do some practice.

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I would suggest pausing for a
couple of minutes while you go

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through this because I'm
only going to pause here

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for about 10 seconds or so to
give you a little bit of time

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to hit the pause button.

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Go through it, try
to correct this,

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some of them might not
require correction.

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All right.

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So people who love technology
celebrate the explosion

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of free speech online;
there is less focus

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on how the internet
could be regulated.

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Well that's two complete ideas.

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We've got people
who love technology,

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celebrate the explosion
of free speech online.

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There is less focus on how the
internet could be regulated,

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those are two complete ideas so
we need some kind of punctuation

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and a semicolon might work or
period and a capital letter.

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We could even do a comma a
but, any of those would work.

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When I show you these
corrections,

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remember that these are
just one or two ways

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that you could correct these
sentences not the only ways you

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could correct them.

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Meghan, Liz and Jill went
to the store and the gym.

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So this one is completely
correct.

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There is only one subject even
though the subject is made

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up of three parts,
so we've got Meghan,

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Liz and Jill are three
different people but there--

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the whole subject, we could
replace that with they,

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so we know it's just one thing.

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And it only has one predicate,

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even though the subjects
are going both to the store

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and the gym, there's
only one verb happening,

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they went to the
store and the gym.

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All right.

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Sam and Joe went to the store,

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but they didn't have
time to work out.

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So we've got the
conjunction, we just want

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to put a comma before it.

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When you have two complete
ideas and you join them

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with a conjunction, make sure
you put that comma in there

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and the comma goes
before the conjunction.

00:12:41.096 --> 00:12:44.356 A:middle
It goes where you would
have put a period at the end

00:12:44.356 --> 00:12:47.896 A:middle
of the first sentence, OK.

00:12:48.136 --> 00:12:50.386 A:middle
Writers often don't know
when to stop writing.

00:12:50.586 --> 00:12:52.586 A:middle
They also sometimes don't
have perfect grammar.

00:12:56.256 --> 00:13:00.186 A:middle
Just go put a period after
writing and capitalize they,

00:13:00.926 --> 00:13:02.686 A:middle
we could probably
put a semicolon there

00:13:02.686 --> 00:13:04.666 A:middle
but it's not entirely necessary.

00:13:05.956 --> 00:13:10.596 A:middle
You might notice that as I read
this, I come to a natural pause

00:13:10.596 --> 00:13:13.696 A:middle
when I get to the end of
my first independent clause

00:13:13.696 --> 00:13:16.456 A:middle
and that can be a way
of checking to see

00:13:16.906 --> 00:13:18.596 A:middle
if you have a run-on sentence.

00:13:18.936 --> 00:13:20.466 A:middle
If you come to a natural pause

00:13:20.746 --> 00:13:22.736 A:middle
and you still got another
compete idea after it,

00:13:23.266 --> 00:13:25.466 A:middle
that might be a good sign that
you've got a run-on going on,

00:13:26.116 --> 00:13:28.786 A:middle
doesn't necessarily mean it
but it's a good idea to check.

00:13:29.846 --> 00:13:31.546 A:middle
Writing a story about
the end the world.

00:13:32.996 --> 00:13:37.286 A:middle
We we've got writing, it
could be used as a subject

00:13:37.886 --> 00:13:42.966 A:middle
but it's also a verb,
so it can be a subject

00:13:43.246 --> 00:13:45.516 A:middle
and we can use a verb to
complete this thought.

00:13:45.516 --> 00:13:47.266 A:middle
We could say, writing
a story about the end

00:13:47.266 --> 00:13:48.546 A:middle
of the world is depressing.

00:13:49.426 --> 00:13:52.846 A:middle
Or we could say I
am writing a story

00:13:52.846 --> 00:13:53.716 A:middle
about the end of the world.

00:13:54.556 --> 00:13:56.906 A:middle
So we can use it as either
the subject or the verb

00:13:57.036 --> 00:14:00.056 A:middle
but once we've chosen, we
need to complete the sentence

00:14:00.056 --> 00:14:02.366 A:middle
by adding the other
one which is missing.

00:14:02.756 --> 00:14:05.576 A:middle
If you don't know how
to do your homework,

00:14:05.576 --> 00:14:06.656 A:middle
you should ask for help.

00:14:07.746 --> 00:14:11.936 A:middle
This one we've got another
run-on or a comma splice

00:14:12.396 --> 00:14:14.646 A:middle
or even a fragment, we
just have them incorrectly

00:14:14.646 --> 00:14:15.646 A:middle
punctuated sentence.

00:14:16.896 --> 00:14:18.476 A:middle
We've got a dependent
clause starting it

00:14:18.686 --> 00:14:20.136 A:middle
if you don't know how
to do your homework

00:14:20.136 --> 00:14:23.406 A:middle
and then we've got independent
clause, you should ask for help.

00:14:23.976 --> 00:14:25.096 A:middle
So we're going to
put a comma right

00:14:25.096 --> 00:14:26.196 A:middle
after that dependent clause.

00:14:26.326 --> 00:14:26.926 A:middle
All right.

00:14:28.976 --> 00:14:32.976 A:middle
So I'm going to pop up
another set of practice

00:14:33.246 --> 00:14:37.016 A:middle
and I'll give you another 10 or
15 seconds to pause it and go

00:14:37.016 --> 00:14:38.976 A:middle
through this section as well.

00:14:48.806 --> 00:14:53.546 A:middle
OK. Going to Disneyland is
really fun and expensive.

00:14:53.836 --> 00:14:57.936 A:middle
Again going is going
to be our subject,

00:14:58.446 --> 00:15:01.226 A:middle
so going to Disneyland, subject.

00:15:01.316 --> 00:15:04.886 A:middle
Is, is our verb, so this is
actually complete sentence.

00:15:05.476 --> 00:15:11.426 A:middle
We went last but can't
afford to go again this year.

00:15:11.616 --> 00:15:17.236 A:middle
We is our subject and we have
both went and can't as verbs.

00:15:17.966 --> 00:15:19.396 A:middle
Since we don't have
two subjects,

00:15:19.746 --> 00:15:23.556 A:middle
it's not a compound sentence,
it's not a sentence that we need

00:15:23.556 --> 00:15:27.946 A:middle
to add any punctuation to.

00:15:28.156 --> 00:15:30.476 A:middle
Maybe next year, we will
be able to afford it again

00:15:30.966 --> 00:15:33.066 A:middle
but right now, I need to
save money for school.

00:15:34.466 --> 00:15:37.836 A:middle
So two complete thoughts, we've
got our coordinating conjunction

00:15:37.836 --> 00:15:40.236 A:middle
in the middle but, we
just don't have a comma.

00:15:40.356 --> 00:15:41.456 A:middle
So we're just going
to add that on.

00:15:42.016 --> 00:15:46.376 A:middle
By the time I get
to Albuquerque,

00:15:46.536 --> 00:15:47.656 A:middle
she'll be up and around.

00:15:48.696 --> 00:15:52.856 A:middle
So we have an independent
clause, she'll be up and around

00:15:53.526 --> 00:15:55.076 A:middle
and we have a dependent clause,

00:15:55.196 --> 00:15:56.646 A:middle
by the time I get
to Albuquerque.

00:15:57.206 --> 00:15:59.036 A:middle
Since the dependent
clause comes first,

00:15:59.436 --> 00:16:02.946 A:middle
we need to put a comma right
after that dependent clause.

00:16:03.596 --> 00:16:07.526 A:middle
The apples fell far
from the tree

00:16:07.756 --> 00:16:09.056 A:middle
and rolled a little farther.

00:16:10.496 --> 00:16:15.446 A:middle
This one is a trick, it's
actually too many commas.

00:16:16.176 --> 00:16:19.176 A:middle
We don't need a comma after tree

00:16:19.456 --> 00:16:24.856 A:middle
because we have compound
verb, they fell and rolled.

00:16:25.846 --> 00:16:29.476 A:middle
Just like the sentence we went
last year but can't afford

00:16:29.476 --> 00:16:33.476 A:middle
to go this year, we have
two verbs with one subject,

00:16:33.546 --> 00:16:34.756 A:middle
we don't need any commas.

00:16:37.376 --> 00:16:40.606 A:middle
The water began to fill
the bowl and soon spilled

00:16:40.606 --> 00:16:42.356 A:middle
on to the table,
the people seated

00:16:42.356 --> 00:16:44.496 A:middle
in the decked chairs
started to squawk,

00:16:44.696 --> 00:16:47.536 A:middle
the chickens realized what was
happening, the old man seated

00:16:47.536 --> 00:16:49.116 A:middle
in the window saw
it all and wrote it

00:16:49.116 --> 00:16:50.566 A:middle
down just as it happened.

00:16:50.856 --> 00:16:54.266 A:middle
I think we can all tell
that this is definitely

00:16:54.516 --> 00:16:55.816 A:middle
at very least a run-on.

00:16:56.436 --> 00:17:00.096 A:middle
We've got several independent
clauses, four of them

00:17:00.366 --> 00:17:03.496 A:middle
and there's one comma, one
period, that's not enough.

00:17:04.376 --> 00:17:08.006 A:middle
So one way to punctuate this
would be the water began

00:17:08.006 --> 00:17:09.226 A:middle
to fill the bowl
and soon spilled

00:17:09.226 --> 00:17:11.086 A:middle
on to the table, one sentence.

00:17:12.146 --> 00:17:14.286 A:middle
The people seated in the decked
chairs started to squawk,

00:17:14.396 --> 00:17:15.396 A:middle
there's another sentence.

00:17:16.006 --> 00:17:17.736 A:middle
The chickens realized
what was happening,

00:17:17.956 --> 00:17:19.456 A:middle
there's a third sentence.

00:17:20.296 --> 00:17:22.976 A:middle
The old man seated in the
window saw it all and wrote it

00:17:22.976 --> 00:17:24.166 A:middle
down just as it happened.

00:17:25.156 --> 00:17:28.046 A:middle
So we can split that one
into four complete sentences

00:17:28.466 --> 00:17:29.476 A:middle
that stand on their own.

00:17:30.796 --> 00:17:33.726 A:middle
These happen more often that
we would like especially

00:17:33.726 --> 00:17:35.916 A:middle
when we're telling
stories, so it's good

00:17:35.916 --> 00:17:37.816 A:middle
to double check and
look for them.

00:17:38.456 --> 00:17:42.046 A:middle
If you're having trouble
figuring out where your run-ons,

00:17:42.046 --> 00:17:45.856 A:middle
comma splices and fragments
are, it is a good idea

00:17:45.856 --> 00:17:47.716 A:middle
to try reading your
sentences out loud,

00:17:48.706 --> 00:17:53.046 A:middle
see if they make sense, see
if you have both a subject

00:17:53.046 --> 00:17:55.076 A:middle
and a verb and all
of your sentences.

00:17:55.546 --> 00:17:58.216 A:middle
If you have lots of subjects
in the verbs in your sentence,

00:17:58.346 --> 00:18:00.466 A:middle
then it's a good
idea to check and see

00:18:00.466 --> 00:18:01.656 A:middle
if maybe you have too many.

00:18:03.046 --> 00:18:05.636 A:middle
If you're having a lot of
trouble figuring this out,

00:18:05.766 --> 00:18:08.076 A:middle
come into the Writing Center
and we'll teach you some tricks

00:18:08.076 --> 00:18:10.196 A:middle
to go through your
paper and find ways

00:18:10.196 --> 00:18:12.076 A:middle
of correcting your own paper.

00:18:13.296 --> 00:18:15.976 A:middle
Thank you for coming
and have a great day.