Run-On Sentences and How to Fix Them

hey everyone i'm going to talk to you about run-ons and how you can avoid them in your writing because they are bad you do not want to have them for the most part maybe there's somebody out there that will say you know it's sort of their style but no run-ons are things you want to avoid they are sentence errors they're not grammar they're not vocabulary they're sentence structure sentence errors that relate to punctuation okay i like to say that run-ons are like you know they're really what they are two sentences one two and they're coming together they're coming together they're in in some writing and there's nothing in between them when there should be there should be like a period or a question mark or something to separate them right but instead there's nothing so they just run together okay um some people can you know you can describe it as a as a car accident with no braking in between there's like nothing slowing it down okay so that's a run-on so let me give you an example of actual run on and writing so let's take a look at this run on sentence i have to rewrite my paper it has run-ons in it okay in case you're not able to hear that that's fine but that's actually two sentences two complete ideas within one period and we can't have that okay so where do those two ideas happen let me read them again i have to rewrite my paper it has run-ons in it so we have two complete sentences and how do you know that well you can hear it sometimes when you're reading but if you look at the structure of the sentence just look at it i have to rewrite my paper okay we have the subject we have a verb i have to rewrite my paper we have a complete thought so right here we have our first complete sentence here we have another one it has run-ons in it it is the subject has is the verb it has run-ons in it that's the rest of the sentence it completes the thought it makes a complete idea so this is the second sentence so we have two sentences in there but those sentences are just running together without proper punctuation between them which is a big problem and the good thing is there's lots of ways to fix that let me go over the ways the first way just add a period period just add a period i have to rewrite my paper period but over here we gotta capitalize this letter right because it's the beginning of a new sentence i have to rewrite my paper period it has run-ons in it period second way is add a comma and a fanboy what's a fanboy fanboy's fancy name for conjunctions f stands for four a is and n is nor b is but or these are coordinating conjunctions they help us connect two sentences together but don't forget you need a comma too i have to rewrite my paper comma then the fanboy which fanboy would work most logically here well you have to understand the meaning of those words in order to choose the right one i have to rewrite my paper because well because it's not a fanboy but i will say that the word for is a fancy way to say because so you could even write that down and say i have to rewrite my paper for it has run-ons in it now i would never talk like that but in writing i would do that you could even you can even change the the meaning of the rest of the sentence and you can say so i can get a better grade something like that number three add a hot shot mama okay what is that that's just another fancy way not really fancy actually i have to thank my friend from citrus college to help me this with this um hotshot mama is an acronym just like fanboys but this one stands for those conjunctive adverbs words like however otherwise they're for okay so here's some of the hot shot mamas there's more similarly hence on the other hand thus moreover additionally meanwhile also there's more okay but this is just something to work with now these are conjunctive adverbs that means they start sentences but the cool thing about them is that you can use a semicolon before then okay so let's say you want to rewrite this sentence this run on this error that you have here i have to rewrite my paper the grade can improve when i do that right so how are we going to combine that which word would you want to use i have to rewrite my paper well here thus therefore as a consequence as a result consequently okay i mean you could add you can add to this and add consequently as a result all those okay so i'm going to put semicolon and then consequently comma the grade can improve i have to rewrite my paper semicolon consequently the grade can improve another way to fix a run-on in your writing is to add a was bit what's was bit well a was bit is another acronym but these ones are for subordinating conjunctions those are the kind that create dependent clauses and complex sentences and all that beautiful sentence variety this is actually my favorite one all right so w stands for when while whereas a is although as s is since b can be before because i is if and t is though and even though these are subordinating conjunctions it's easier to remember was bit when you use these was bits you're actually creating a dependent clause that's not as strong as an independent clause which is what you have here you have two independent clauses so when you add one of these words to one of these clauses you create a dependent clause but that's not a bad thing that's actually a great thing because now you're going to have sentence variety now you're going to have a complex sentence okay so you can do that by putting the was but at the beginning of the first clause the first sentence or the beginning of the second one but it has to be logical it has to go in the right spot so look at the the idea here i have to rewrite my paper it has many errors in it the logical conjunction that would go here would be a word like because or for right so what what is the word up here that means because because so now where are we gonna put because are we gonna because here are we gonna put because here because i have to rewrite my paper it has many errors in it no i have to rewrite my paper there we go i have to rewrite my paper because it has many errors in it that's it you fixed your run-on but i would recommend when you do this when you use wuzbids try to use them at the beginning of your sentence it brings in more sentence variety let me show you what i'm talking about okay so here what i'm doing is i've actually started the sentence with the what's bit because it has so many run-ons in it comma i have to rewrite my paper same exact words same exact sentence i just reordered it and what else did i do don't forget very important i added a comma so the rule is whenever you add a was bit to the beginning of a sentence before that next sentence or clause you need to make sure you have a comma because it helps with the flow of the reader right because it has so many run-ons in it i have to rewrite my paper that's how it reads okay so those are the four ways that i like to teach my students to avoid and fix run-ons bye

Channel: Breaking English

Views: 839

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Run-On Sentences and How to Fix Them, grammar, run-on sentence, run-on sentences, run-on, sentences, education, learn english, run on sentence, run-ons, english, english grammar, sentence fragments, comma splice, independent clause, english lessons, ielts, toefl, toefl writing, comma splices, english writing, sentence structure, pass the ielts, ielts high score, toefl high score, conjunctions, how to use, writing skills, how to write in english, ielts writing, essential grammar

Id: bPaw2Iuezqs

Length: 9min 46sec (586 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/zignut66]

I don’t understand why you said a sentence structure error isn’t a grammar error.