CHAPTER
THE PROBLEMS
If you’re here , you may have just gotten an essay back on which your instructor has used one (or more) of these abbreviations: FRAG (for “sentence fragment”), CS (for “comma splice”),or RO (for “run on sentence”; your. What connects these three abbreviations – you’ll see in a moment what each stands for – is that they all betray trouble with sentences boundaries: knowing when sentences begin and end, or even what makes a sentence at all. Here are examples, one for each, and in order:
- Graciela dyed her hair teal. But was glad finally to match the shag carpet in her bedroom.
- Major LeSinge became angry, the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
- Barnet insisted on sleeping in the window well the rest of the family thought it best to let him.
If these sentences look all right to you but not to your instructor – of if you know that something is wrong with these sentences but don’t quite know what, then you’re in the right place!
WHAT SENTENCE BOUNDARIES ARE AND HOW THEY WORK
How do you know when you have a sentence? Here’s a basic definition: A sentence must have
- a subject: a noun or a pronoun that’s acting or being;
- a verb: a word expressing action or being; and
- a complete thought.
Whenever you’re missing one of these three elements, what you’ve got isn’t a sentence. You may have a phrase (a group of words – without a verb – that belong together) or a dependent clause(a group of words that has both a subject and a verb but that doesn’t express a complete thought). Let’s take a quick look at what this means. Consider the following:
- In the late afternoon.
Is this a sentence? No: we’re lacking a verb of any kind, so what we have is a phrase (a prepositional phrase, and if you’d like to know more about phrases, see the chapter Phrases.) How about
- Although she is unusually feisty for a woman of her years.
Is this a sentence? We have a verb, all right: “is.” And there’s a subject that goes with it: “she.” So we have subject, plus verb; but does this express a complete thought? No: it leaves us hanging: although she is unusually feisty for a woman of her years…what? This is no sentence, either.
- Great Aunt Brita Sophie requires tea.
Here we go: subject (Great Aunt Brita), verb (requires), and a complete thought. Notice how complicated sentences can become when we add and combine elements:
- Although she is unusually feisty for a woman of her years, in the late afternoon Great Aunt Brita Sophie typically requires the restorative powers of a cup of strong Oolong tea.
“All right,” you may be thinking. “But how does all this help me to correct my mistakes?” Read on!
THE SOLUTIONS
Let’s start with sentence fragments:
- Problem: Graciela dyed her hair teal. But was glad finally to match the shag carpet in her bedroom.
Do you see that the italicized portion is missing one or more of the three essential elements of a complete sentence? Thus, the first solution is to supply whatever is missing – a subject, a verb, or a complete thought – so that the result is a complete sentence:
- Solution 01: Graciela dyed her hair teal. But she was glad finally to match the shag carpet in her bedroom. (subject added)
Yet another way to correct a sentence fragment is by joining the fragment to another sentence:
- Problem: Graciela dyed her hair teal. But was glad finally to match the shag carpet in her bedroom.
- Solution 02: Graciela dyed her hair teal but was glad finally to match the shag carpet in her bedroom.
What about comma splices? “To splice” means to attempt to connect two or more broken ends, as of a rope or a tape. When you splice, you make a temporary fix: A rope that’s been spliced together is never as strong as a rope that hasn’t broken. You can see where this is leading: When you use a comma to splice together two sentences, you have a problem. Another way of thinking of comma splices is that a commas is a relatively “weak” mark of punctuation: You need something “stronger” to keep two sentences apart.
What about this?
- Major LeSinge became angry, the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Do you see the problem here? We have two complete sentences, one on either side of the comma:
subject verb = complete thought.
- Major LeSinge became angry.
subject verb = complete thought.
- The surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Here, the writer of the sentence acknowledges that he or she has two sentences and has tried to keep them apart with a comma; however, as noted above, a comma is too “weak” – like a splice – to do so.
So how do you fix comma splices? Try one of these five ways.
- Problem: Major LeSinge became angry, the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Here’s an easy solution: Split the sentences in two by using a period, as follows:
- Solution 01: Major LeSinge became angry. The surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Done and dusted! However, you have other options. For instance, you can add a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, so, yet) after the comma:
- Solution 02: Major LeSinge became angry, for the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Or you can add a subordinating conjunction (although, because, since, unless, etc.):
- Solution 03: Major LeSinge became angry when the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Recall, as above, that you may also add the coordinating conjunction to the first sentence:
- Solution 03: When Major LeSinge became angry, the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Note, though, that when you use this method, you’ll need a comma at the end of the first “sentence” / clause.
Or you can replace the comma with a semicolon, which, unlike a comma, is “strong” enough to keep sentences apart. (In fact, ne of the ways to figure out if you’ve used a semicolon correctly is to be sure that you have a complete sentence on either side of it):
- Solution 04: Major LeSinge became angry; the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille” accurately.
Or, finally, you can use a connective adverb or adverb phrase (furthermore, moreover, nevertheless, in addition, etc.). You must, however, be sure to use a semicolon before the adverb and a comma afterwards:
- Solution 05: Major LeSinge became angry; moreover, the surly macaque refused to play “Reveille”
accurately.
What about run-on sentences? While comma splices attempt to join two sentences with a comma, run-ons (also called “fused sentences”) “run” two sentences together without any mark of punctuation at all. (You might want to note a “run on” sentences doesn’t “run on” in the sense of being too long!) Another way of indicating this error is to use the abbreviation FS, which means fused sentence. To fuse, the dictionary helpfully tells us, means “to unite or blend into a whole, as if by melting together.”
Is that what you want your sentences to do – melt together into one long super-sentence? Even if that is what you want (!), your professor certainly doesn’t – and neither do your readers.
Here’s an example of a run-on sentence (again, with the subjects and verbs marked so that you can see where the two distinct sentences are):
Key: subject verb
- Barnet insisted on sleeping in the window well the rest of the family thought it best to let him.
The problem with run-on sentences is that they’re confusing: readers have a hard time figuring out what you mean because your thoughts are all “run” together. However, the solutions to run-on sentences are the same as they are for commas splices. Thus, you might split the sentences in two by using a period:
- Solution 01: Barnet insisted on sleeping in the window well. The rest of the family thought it best to let him.
or add a coordinating conjunction; you’ll need to add a comma before it, too:
- Solution 02: Barnet insisted on sleeping in the window well, so the rest of the family thought it best to let him.
or add a subordinating conjunction:
- Solution 03: Because Barnet insisted on sleeping in the window well, the rest of the family thought it best to let him.
or replace the comma with a semicolon:
- Solution 04: Barnet insisted on sleeping in the window well; the rest of the family thought it best to let him.
or finally, use an appropriate connective adverb or adverb phrase:
- Solution 05: Barnet insisted on sleeping in the window well; therefore, the rest of the family thought it best to let him.
Okay: While you may be feeling a little overwhelmed, focus on this idea: Sentence boundaries represent only three types of errors, whereas this document contains over a dozen ways to fix them!
ANALOGY
Imagine for a moment that you and I are nodding acquaintances who work together on projects. Now imagine that I am walking down the hallway, approaching you, and as you came close enough for us to exchange a few words I said to you, “Wasn’t very impressive,” what would you think?
Really, what would you think?
You might just think, “Well, she’s crazy. She’s muttering again.”
You might just as easily think, “What wasn’t very impressive? The presentation we all attended yesterday? Something in the room out of which she just turned to walk down this hallway?”
If you were the slightest bit paranoid, you might think, “She isn’t very impressed with me? Really? What have I done to not impress her, I wonder?” and walk on feeling insecure and judged.
Ah, the power of an incomplete thought. This incomplete thought, “wasn’t very impressive” has no subject. It is just a group of words, a verb and a couple of modifiers. The hearer has to interpret its meaning with almost no clues for doing so. You can imagine the danger of interpreting with so little assistance.
Some people actually intentionally withhold information in this way, to increase their power by increasing others’ bewilderment. Other people, quite unintentionally, allow themselves to express ideas without placing those ideas into complete thoughts. This unintentional tendency affects others in many ways, creating confusion, distrust, and even panic. These are mostly unhelpful emotions.
If you have this tendency, learn to correct it by taking the time to complete your thoughts and form actual coherent sentences. Test whatever you have punctuated as if it were a real sentence by asking yourself whether you could speak that sentence, passing someone in a hallway, and have it be fairly clear to its hearer. You’ll discover your incomplete thoughts. You will build better sentences, not to mention more trust, and you will participate in better teamwork. You will allay fears rather than compounding them. The passing thought, if it’s complete, has the power to build new worlds.
LANGUAGE IN FLUX
A sentence, we’ve just gone done telling you, must have a subject, a verb, and it must express a complete thought. If you’re missing any of these elements, you end up with something that may look like a sentence (especially if it begins with a capital letter and ends with a mark of punctuation) but is in fact something else – that is, a sentence fragment: a phrase, for example, or a dependent clause.
And yet we see sentence fragments everywhere. Imagine that you’re paging through a magazine and you notice an advertisement for a company that promises customers that it will provide universal free Internet access without a phone connection (clearly we’re making this scenario up off the top of our heads). The advertisement shows, let’s say, a young woman riding the subway and working on a laptop computer; below this picture are the lines, “Whenever you need it. Wherever you are.” What’s going on here?
These are two sentence fragments, right? More specifically, they’re dependent clauses: what’s missing is that though both have subjects (you) and verbs (are), they don’t express a complete thought. Yet here they are, in black and white. Why?
The fact of the matter is that is certain instances – especially in advertising – authors may choose to use sentence fragments to express short, pithy, powerful messages. Advertisers want to get an audience’s attention, to pique their curiosity, to make an impression swiftly and effectively, and to do this they often imitate quick, clipped speech in the text of their advertisements. In fact, to go back to our hypothetical example, to expand these fragments into a complete sentence (“Our company can provide you with internet access whenever you need it and wherever you are”) might sacrifice the “punch” of the sales pitch.
This is all well and good for advertising – or, for that matter, for creative writing, or letters and e-mail. Be aware, though, that, as of right now, most writers continue to view sentence fragments as inappropriate for formal or academic writing. Advertisements are limited by time and space: advertisers have to get an audience’s attention and have an impact as quickly, and in as few words, as possible. This isn’t the case in formal and academic writing, in which you have, relatively speaking, a great deal more time and space to make your point. In formal or academic writing you can’t afford to force your audience to make meaning for you: you need to get your message across as clearly and completely as possible by reducing the guesswork on the part of the audience. That means going making sure that each sentence has a subject, a verb, and expresses a complete thought. Doing so may take more time (for you to write, and your audience to read). But the reward is an effective and complete sentence with unambiguous meaning.
THE BASICS: SENTENCES AND SENTENCE BOUNDARIES
- WHAT IS IT? A sentence must have three elements:
- a subject – a noun or a pronoun that’s acting or being;
- a verb – a word expressing action or being; and
- a complete thought.
Whenever you’re missing one or more of these elements, what you end up with isn’t a sentence at all but rather a fragment (only part of a sentence), a commas splice (two or more sentences “spliced” together with a comma or commas), or a run-on (two or more sentences run into each other with no punctuation).
- HOW DO YOU USE IT? You write sentences all the time, of course; but you’ll need to know what sentence boundaries are if your essays come back to your with FRAG, CS, or RO marked on them!
- WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? Each of these kinds errors has a set of solutions, as follows:
To correct fragments, you
- Change it with a subject, verb, or complete thought.
- Join the fragment to another sentence.
To correct both commas splices and run-ons, you
- Split the sentences in two by using a period.
- Add a coordinating conjunction after the comma.
- Add a subordinating conjunction.
- Replace the comma with a semicolon.
- Use an appropriate connective adverb or adverb phrase.
EXERCISE
Correct the following sentence boundary errors – if necessary.
- You might say that UFOs have been landing in your yard and killing the grass, I think the problem is that you’ve been fertilizing your yard with vinegar.
- At the meeting on Saturday morning we discovered Floyd. Arranging the sliced cheese artistically on a large wooden platter.
- Flint says that the secret ingredient in his sand dabs is fresh sand, I won’t be asking him to bring that particular recipe to my party.
- Hayworth is convinced that a ghost lives in his bathroom, but I think his radiator needs to be repaired.
- We eagerly tasted the fresh batch of Grandma’s rutabaga pudding. And couldn’t wait to have an entire bowl after dinner.
- Modesta doesn’t believe in dusting she says that dust protects furniture from knicks and scratches.
- Jeremiah certainly looked considerably more refreshed. After he enjoyed several turns on the log-ride.
- I guess that we’d better do the laundry, my clothing is about to walk itself to the laundromat.
- We gave the peahen her bath, she settled for the night on top of the china cabinet.
- Dorian lovingly placed the alstroemeria into a vase he knew how much Galeria would enjoy these flowers.