Challenge time

Don’t let your words run away with you. Pause, take a deep breath.

September 09, 2019 11:10 am | Updated 11:10 am IST

Shyam’s mother looked at her phone and found two messages from her son:

Message one: I am going to the shop I need to buy some stationary.

Message two: My teacher read my paper she said it was excellent.

Reading this, Shyam's mother replied:

“With a few revisions, your messages will be free of some glaring grammatical errors.”

The independent clauses (complete sentences) have not been separated by a punctuation mark or combined with a conjunction and this makes it a clear case of run on sentence. More than one independent clause cannot exist in a sentence unless they are properly combined. To properly combine clauses, correct conjunctions or punctuation must be added to the sentence.

A run-on sentence is poor grammar. There are various ways to fix run-on sentences.

Some tips:

Add end punctuation:

Depending on the types of clauses that are incorrectly joined in run-on sentences, end punctuation could serve to separate the two clauses. Typically, a period will work.

Example:

Run-on: I woke up I ate breakfast.

Correction: I woke up. I ate breakfast.

Now, the two clauses function as two separate sentences.

Use a comma and conjunction:

Adding a comma alone does not fix a run-on sentence. But, adding a comma and the appropriate conjunction can join the clauses appropriately.

Example:

Run-on: I woke up I ate breakfast.

Correction: I woke up, and I ate breakfast.

So, your challenge is to fix the run-ons in your messages, Shyam!

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