COMMON ERROR 3: RUN-ON SENTENCE

A run-on sentence fragment occurs when 2 complete sentences are pushed together without an adequate means of joining.

WRONG
He was tall and muscular his brother was short and weak.
RIGHT
He was tall and muscular but his brother was short and weak.

Often this error occurs when a writer treats a comma, an adverb, or the 2 together, as a joining device. Remember that a comma always shows a break, never a link.

WRONG
Upgrading of facilities was urgent, however, the school board did not have the necessary finance to authorise the work.
RIGHT
Upgrading of facilities was urgent but the school board did not have the necessary finance to authorise the work.

Above, the conjunction ‘but’ replaces the adverb ‘however’

ALSO RIGHT
Upgrading of the facilities was urgent; however, the school board did not have the necessary finance to authorise the work.

Above, a semi-colon replaces the comma, but a comma is needed after ‘however’

ALSO RIGHT
Upgrading of the facilities was urgent. However, the school board did not have the finance to authorise the work.

Above, a period replaces the comma, and ‘however’ is given a capital followed by a comma.

ALSO RIGHT
Although upgrading of the facilities was urgent, the school board did not have the finance to authorise the work.

Above, the first of the complete sentences has been made into a dependent clause.

Run-on sentences may force a reader to reread what is written in order to grasp the meaning. They are particularly common in business writing because terms like ‘however’ and ‘therefore’ are often used to show logical connection. Logical and grammatical connection are not the same. Words e.g. ‘however’ and ‘therefore’ could often come at the end of a sentence but can never perform the grammatical work of a conjunction.

Compare the following:
She worked hard but could not repay her mortgage.
She worked hard; however, she could not repay her mortgage.

In the first sentence the word butis immovable. It cannot go anywhere else in the sentence apart from where it is. In the second, the semicolon, not ‘however’ linked the 2 parts of the 2nd sentence and the writer can easily rearrange the sentence:

She worked hard. She could not repay her mortgage, however.