Run-on Review

Run-on

In a run-on sentence, many ideas have been put together in one sentence, without correct punctuation. ***The dreaded comma splice is a special type of run-on.

Example: There was a blizzard overnight the snowplows were out early by morning most of the roads were clear enough for safe driving.

Repairing the problem

Your reader may have trouble keeping track of all the separate ideas in a run-on sentence. To repair the sentence, you must separate the ideas and add the correct punctuation. Adding commas will not correct the problem. This will probably create a new problem called the comma splice.

Repair #1

Create three short sentences by using periods to separate each idea or independent clause.

There was a blizzard overnight. The snowplows were out early. By morning most of the roads were clear enough for safe driving.

Repair #2

Use a conjunction (words like and, or, but, because, so, since) to join some of the ideas, and separate the sentence to highlight the most important idea.

There was a blizzard overnight. The snowplows were out early, and by morning most of the roads were clear enough for safe driving.

OR

Because there was a blizzard overnight, the snowplows were out early. By morning most of the roads were clear enough for safe driving.

From Reading and Writing For Success (pp.198-199)
PRACTICE

LINK (use this as practice)

Repair the following sentences. If you need to you can turn them into more than one sentence. If a sentence is correct, simply re-copy it.

  1. I worked very hard during the first term this helped me to get a good mark on my report card.
  1. There is a lot of construction going on near the school this is sometimes distracting we hear several explosions each day.
  1. I am so happy to be teaching grade twelve students, simply because they are so much more mature than grade tens.
  1. I cannot wait for June to get here,therefore I am looking forward to summer vacation
  1. I went to Moncton on a hockey trip we won the tournament and got nice medals the drive home from Moncton was boring.
  1. I wish we could wear our hats in school I keep forgetting to take my hat off when I come in sometimes a teacher takes my hat.