Quick Start Guide: Run-on Sentences

Welcome!

Welcome to the Learning Commons Quick Start Guide on run-on sentences!

Run-on sentences are commonly found in inexperienced academic writing. They seem to make a given paper appear more “technical,” but really all they do is obscure meaning. This Guide will explain:

• What run-on sentences are
• How to fix run-on sentences (both fused sentences and comma splices)

Resources

TWU Run-ons Handout

Purdue OWL

Comma Splice Errors: Celebrity Grammar feat. Katy Perry. Learn from celeb mistakes!

This video is a primer on what makes for a run-on sentence:

• Two independent clauses are put together without being connected correctly. They are missing either:
  • The proper punctuation between them, or
  • A conjunction connecting them.

In this mini-course, we explore this in more detail:

1. Spotting Run-ons
2. Specific types of run-on: fused sentences
3. Specific types of run-on: comma splices
4. Correcting run-on sentences