TOP TIP: The website Hemingway Editor will help you pick up a lot of sentence problems in your writing.

Sentences Problems in General

Kahn Academy has a good video on Sentence Problems.

For Senior Students, this very smartly dressed American professor runs through common sentence problems – there is a transcript to follow along.

Comma Splices (and fused sentences)

This is a very very common sentence problem with secondary school students.

Watch this video to get a better understanding of this error: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNCHbJruutY

You can also watch this video and take a quiz: https://natureofwriting.com/courses/sentence-structure/lessons/comma-splices-and-fused-sentences-2/topic/comma-splices-and-fused-sentences/

What is a comma splice?

Basically, commas cannot be used to join sentences.

Sally ran to the shops, she bought a pie.

These are two complete sentences (also called ‘independent clauses’). They cannot be joined by a comma.

To fix this, you need to replace with either:

• a full stop
• a FANBOYS conjunction
• semi colon

Sally ran to the shops. She bought a pie.

Sally ran to the shops and bought a pie.

Sally ran to the shops; she bought a pie.

Any of these are now correct.

The website Hemingway Editor will help you pick up Comma Splices in your writing.

Run On Sentences

Run on sentences are basically sentences that go on and on and on and on. They have too many parts. My general rule is max 2-3 parts.

Sally went to the shops AND she bought a pie BUT the pie was cold SO she went back to the shop AND asked for a new one, THEN she also wanted an iced coffee SO she paid the shopkeeper extra BEFORE heading back home.

This example has eight parts, joined with conjunctions (joining words).

A better option would be:

Sally went to the shops AND bought a pie (2 parts). Unfortunately the pie was cold, SO she went back AND asked for a new one (3 parts). She also wanted an iced coffee, SO she paid the shopkeeper BEFORE heading back home (3 parts).

If I’ve told you to work on your run on sentences, I mean for you to split up your overly long sentences. Hemingway Editor is good for identifying run ons.

For Senior Students, here is a comprehensive guide for fixing Run On Sentences: https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/grammar/runonsentences

Test your skills!

Can you pick up the mistakes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri2dY1so8Cs

Or do this quiz: https://www.waikato.ac.nz/students/student-learning/grammar/hotpot/comma_splice_quiz.shtml or this quiz: https://www.niu.edu/writingtutorial/punctuation/quizzes/CommaSplice.htm or this one: http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/exercises/comma_splices_ex1.htm or this one on Kahn Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/syntax-conventions-of-standard-english/fragments-and-run-ons/e/recognizing-run-ons-and-comma-splices