Common Sentence Errors

There are really only three ways to foul up a sentence, grammatically speaking. 

You will recall that a sentence has a subject, a verb, and expresses a complete thought.  Hence, to write a sentence incorrectly, at least one of these elements must be missing, incomplete, or poorly connected.  The three errors are:

1)  Comma Splice:  To splice means "to connect," so a comma splice means you tried to hook independent clauses together (or perhaps entire sentences) with ONLY a comma.  You might recall our rules for how to join clauses together.

                    examples:  Jim ran, Bob swam.
                                    The dog swam in the ocean until he was tired, then he rolled in the sand.
                                    Everyone was happy, Jill was too.

2)  Run-On:  One sentence runs smack into another without the use of punctuation.

                    examples:  Jim ran Bob swam.
                                    Jim ran and Bob swam.
                                    Clarence ran the store was open all night.

3)  Fragment:  The sentence is missing something important, such as a subject, verb, or completeness of thought.  Perhaps it is missing all three!  Sometimes fragments are caused by writing a dependent clause without an independent clause.

                     examples:  Jim the car home after work.
                                    When Hubert opened the closet and looked inside at the clothes.
                                    Jogging in the park late at night in the rain.

**To learn more about punctuation, visit this fine page at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.**

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