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Brannan: A Writer's Workshop
A Writer's Workshop: Crafting Paragraphs, Building Essays
Bob Brannan, Johnson County Community College
Run-Ons, Comma Splices, and Sentence Fragments

Summary

1.

If we let two main clauses run together as a single sentence, without any punctuation, we have a run-on or fused sentence.

2.

Two separate sentences divided by a comma are called a comma splice.

3.

Coordinating conjunctions and semicolons can fix run-ons and comma splices.

4.

Subordination also helps avoid run-on sentences. Subordination lends itself to concision, as well.

5.

Sentence fragments are phrases constructed as sentences that cannot stand alone. They can often be fixed by attaching them to the following or previous sentence.








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