Controlling Your Sentences: Avoiding Fragments, Run-Ons, and Comma Splices

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Controlling Your Sentences
Learning Objective: Avoiding Fragments, Run-Ons, and Comma Splices

In academic work, anything that interferes with the reader’s comprehension can be considered a serious flaw in writing. Some of the common mistakes made by students are fragments, run-on sentences, and comma splices. Fragments are incomplete sentences, run-on sentences are two independent (main) clauses joined without using a comma and a coordinating conjunction such as and, but, or, so, etc., and comma splices are two independent clauses joined by a comma but without a coordinating conjunction. It should be noted that in academic writing, many readers count fragments, run-ons, and comma splices as errors. Therefore, as a college student, you will have to do your best to avoid these errors as you write your academic essays. Let’s first look at a few examples of fragments. Then we will discuss what run-on sentences and comma splices are and how to avoid them.

Fragments
As mentioned above, a fragment is an incomplete idea presented as a complete sentence. Consider the following example:

* And invested their lifetime savings in conservative mutual funds.
(The asterisk before the sentence is a linguistic convention to denote ungrammaticality)

Do you understand why the above sentence is a fragment? In other words, do you know why it is ungrammatical? Remember that a sentence must consist of a subject and a verb. The problem with the above example is that even though it has a verb (can you tell?), it does not have a subject. Most readers will find the sentence very confusing, because it is not clear at all who invested their lifetime savings. You can repair the fragment easily by including a subject at the beginning of the sentence:

John and Mary invested their lifetime savings in conservative mutual funds.

Exercise:
Read the following fragments and complete the sentences using your own words.
  1. Even though they were not rich,

  1. Although the demand for the product was high,

  1. When they arrived at JFK International Airport,

  1. Many people believe that negative attitude  

Now that you understand what a fragment is, let’s look at another common mistake college students make.


Run-On Sentences
Unlike sentence fragments, run-on sentences are two independent clauses joined without appropriate punctuation. Let’s look at the following example:

* You have the option of receiving $13,000 at the end of three years or $15,000 at the end of five years both amounts could be invested to receive interest of 10%.

This is a run-on sentence, because two complete sentences are presented as one without correct punctuation. Can you tell where one sentence ends and the other begins? You can revise a run-on sentence by separating the two independent sentences with a period, semicolon, or a coordinating conjunction. Keep in mind that coordinating conjunctions are also called FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so).

With a period:
You have the option of receiving $13,000 at the end of three years or $15,000 at the end of five years. Both amounts could be invested to receive interest of 10%.

With a semicolon:
You have the option of receiving $13,000 at the end of three years or $15,000 at the end of five years; both amounts could be invested to receive interest of 10%.

With a coordinating conjunction:
You have the option of receiving $13,000 at the end of three years or $15,000 at the end of five years, and both amounts could be invested to receive interest of 10%.

Comma Splices
A comma splice occurs when the writer uses a comma to join two independent clauses, but s/he forgets to use a coordinating conjunction. Here is an example:

Jose loves playing videogames, his brother enjoys playing soccer.

As you can see, the writer uses a comma to splice together two complete ideas, but there is no coordinating conjunction after the comma. The comma splice error can be easily rectified by using a conjunction as follows:

Jose loves playing videogames, but his brother enjoys playing soccer.

Exercise: Recognizing Fragments, Run-On Sentences, and Comma Splices
Read the following examples carefully and determine whether they are fragments, run-on sentences, or comma splices. Write F for fragment, R for run-on, and CS for comma splices next to the example.

  1. There once was a famous game show called “The Price is Right” the game show host would give you various options. ______

  1. May lead you to the wrong decision. ______

  1. That you can invest money at a given interest rate and the interest earned will make today’s dollars more valuable in the future. _____

  1. Experts are predicting a market crash in the summer, savvy investors see this correction as an opportunity to buy stocks at a discounted price. ______

  1. The time value of money assumes that you can invest money at a given interest rate the interest earned will make today’s dollars more valuable in the future. _____

  1. Intel Corp. is facing stiff competition from its archrival AMD, some analysts think that AMD will steal market share from Intel this year. ______

  1. Treat $15,000 cash receipts for clock radios in year five as customer receipts in year five consider $13,000 cash receipts for televisions in year three as customer receipts in year three. _____

Exercise: Writing Complete Thoughts
The passage below contains sentence fragments, run-ons, and comma splices. Revise them to complete the thoughts so that the reader is not confused.

India has the second largest population in the world, some experts believe that it will soon surpass China’s population. Since China has a one-child policy Although the Indian government is concerned about the explosive growth in population  The Indian population will continue to grow exponentially, it will become increasingly difficult for people to find employment opportunities in the future. It is possible that India will soon surpass China’s population, the Government of India must institute a one-child policy to avoid a population explosion.

Learning Implications

It is important to know how the basic sentence works in order to address common errors that may occur when you are constructing your own sentences. As you write essays, avoiding sentence fragments, run-ons, comma splices and writing complete thoughts will help you communicate clearly with the reader.  

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