#fragments | Robin Neal

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Fragments, Run-ons, and Sentences: Resources for Students

FragmentsandRun-ons Knowing how to identify and correct run-on sentences is one of the best skills any young writer can develop and this ability allows apprentice scribes to write more clearly and writing more clearly will raise any ordinary Joe or Jane to rock-star status, leading to wealth, celebrity, and fame. I know. I am hilarious. I just made a grammar joke. If you didn’t get it, read on.

Google defines a run-on sentence as: A grammatically faulty sentence in which two or more main or independent clauses are joined without a word to connect them or a punctuation mark to separate them: “The fog was thick he could not find his way home.”

Do you understand that definition? If so, you probably don’t need me. Go and teach yourself how to avoid this all-too-common sentence construction error. There’s this handy thing known as Google that will come in handy.

But, you’re here, so you’re probably interested in some help. Allow me.

Now that you’ve watched the video, you will understand this simpler definition of a run-on sentence: two or more sentences incorrectly joined together.

In English, you may never join more than two sentences together. The opening sentence of this post, then, is a run-on sentence because it tries (and fails) to join three sentences together:

Knowing how to identify and correct run-on sentences is one of the best skills any young writer can develop.

This ability allows novice scribes to write more clearly.

Writing more clearly will raise any ordinary Joe or Jane to rock-star status, leading to wealth, celebrity, and fame.

That joke was not very good at all. I know that, yet I also know the following resources are good. They will no doubt help you master this concept: