Hi.
I'm Rebecca from engVid.
In this lesson I'll show you how to avoid the two most common errors made in English
writing, and also how to fix them.
Okay?
So, these two errors are: The run-on sentence and the comma splice.
So, what does that mean?
Well, what happens in both these cases is that two sentences are incorrectly joined
into one sentence.
In one case, the run-on sentence, it's incorrectly joined because there's no punctuation; and
in the comma splice, it's incorrectly joined with a comma.
Okay?
Let's have a look at some examples so you understand exactly what I mean.
So, the first one: "I like your haircut it looks really good."
Now, what happened here?
We have a subject and a verb, and a sentence here: "I like your haircut."
So this sentence is really a sentence by itself; it should end there in some way.
Okay?
Later we're going to look at exactly how to fix it; there are a few options.
But the writer wrote right after that: "...it looks really good", so that's another sentence
with a subject and a verb.
Right?
We have it here.
All right?
So, this is incorrect, and this is an example of a run-on sentence, because it's two sentences
with no punctuation.
Let's take a look at this one: "I like your haircut, it looks really good."
Well, it still should be two separate sentences in some way, or correctly joined, but it's
not.
It was only joined with a comma, which is incorrect.
Okay?
So this is an example of the comma splice, which is basically these two sentences were
combined into one incorrectly with a comma.
Let's take a look at another example.
"My brother is a doctor he works at a hospital."
So, by now you can probably tell me: Here we have...
"My brother" is the subject, "is" is the verb; "he" is the subject, "works" is the verb,
but these are two sentences.
Right?
But what happened?
The writer wrote them as one long sentence.
"My brother is a doctor he works at a hospital."
And really, we needed some kind of break here, and the same thing here.
So this was...
Sorry.
An example of a run-on sentence.
Right?
And this one: "My brother is a doctor, he works at a hospital."
But, again, we cannot join this kind of...
These two sentences with a comma.
So this was a mistake called a comma splice.
Now, you're saying to me: "Does a comma really make all that difference?"
Yeah, it does, and especially if you're appearing for any kind of exam-okay?-any kind of English
exam, like the IELTS, or the TOEFL, or the TOEIC, or the PTE, or anything else; or if
you're submitting an assignment in school, or in college, or in university; or if you're
writing an email.
An email, you're just going to look quite unprofessional; but in school or in any academic
situation, you're going to lose marks for sure in your writing with this mistake.
Why?
Because it's a very basic mistake.
Okay?
It's not a sophisticated, advanced mistake; it's a basic mistake that you need to know
in English.
"What is a complete sentence?
And how to create a complex sentence or anything else."
Okay?
So, next we're going to look at how to fix these mistakes.
All right, are you with me?
Let's take a look at a new example.
"People are buying books online bookstores are closing."
All right?
So right now, the way it is up here, this is a mistake.
This is, which one?
Run-on sentence or comma splice?
It's a run-on sentence.
Okay?
If it had had a comma here, then it would be a comma splice.
But one way or the other, we have two sentences which are incorrectly joined and made into
one sentence.
So, how can we fix it?
So, here, first I'm going to show you two easier solutions that you can use.
So, the first one is to separate the two sentences with a period.
For example: "People are buying books online."
(Period).
And then, of course, because now we have a new sentence, we need to make this a capital:
"Bookstores are closing."
All right?
Got it?
Separate them with a period.
Separate the two sentences, and start the new sentence with a capital letter.
Second option: Separate with a semi-colon.
Okay?
What's a semi-colon?
It's a punctuation mark that looks like this: ";". It's actually a really good punctuation
mark to get to know, because if you use a semi-colon in your writing, it's considered
a little bit more of an advanced punctuation mark and it shows that your English is at
a little bit of a higher level.
It's a very popular punctuation mark in universities, and academic writing, and so on.
Okay?
So, learn it; it's not hard to use.
And what does a semi-colon mean, or why do we use it?
We use it to separate-yes-but we use it when two sentences or two ideas are quite close
in meaning, like here.
Right?
"People are buying books online;" (semi-colon).
And now we've created the separation, but we don't need to capitalize anything here.
Okay?
So then we say: "People are buying books online; bookstores are closing."
All right?
So the only difference was here we created two separate sentences.
It's a little more basic also, here.
All right?
Here, it's a little more sophisticated, a little more advanced because we said: "People
are buying books online;"-no capital-"bookstores are closing".
All right?
So these are the first two options that you have to fix this sentence.
Next we're going to look at two slightly more advanced options.
All right, so now let's look at option number three, and that is to make a compound sentence.
What is a compound sentence?
A compound sentence is when we have two sentences that are connected with what's called a coordinating
conjunction.
Okay?
I know that's a long grammatical term, but it refers to one of these words.
And just to remember them, we have the acronym: FANBOYS.
Okay?
So, F for "for", "and", "nor", "but", "or", "yet", and "so".
Okay?
These are coordinating conjunctions that you can use to create a compound sentence.
For example: "People are buying books online and bookstores are closing."
Now it's a proper, correct sentence in terms of grammar.
Or we could have said here: "People are buying books online,"-and in this case, comma-"so
bookstores are closing".
Okay?
But either of those words makes this now a correct sentence.
All right?
And that would be called a compound sentence, because we have two complete sentences: "People
are buying books online", and the second sentence: "Bookstores are closing", but they're connected
properly.
Okay?
I hope you're with me; I'm sure you are.
Okay.
Let's look at the last option, and that is to make a complex sentence.
All right?
This is considered, like, the more...
The most advanced option that you can implement.
All right?
So, here, what we do is we use something like this.
We say, for example: "Because people are buying books online,"-comma-"bookstores are closing".
Now, why is this a complex sentence?
Because we have an independent clause-right?-that can stand by itself: "Bookstores are closing",
and we have something called a dependent clause, because if we say: "Because people are buying
books online", that's not a complete sentence by itself, right?
It depends on the second part of the sentence to make sense.
So, this first part is called a dependent clause, and the second part is called an independent
clause.
It doesn't have to go in that order.
When the dependent clause comes first, then we have a comma; if it was in the other...
The other order-okay?-the opposite order, if we said: "Bookstores are closing because
people are buying books online", then we don't need any comma.
Got all that?
Good for you.
Sometimes when there are a lot of options, what's better is to learn one option and do
that every time, and that makes your life easier and also you'll be right.
Okay?
So, words like: "because", these are called subordinating conjunctions, for those of you
who love grammar.
And examples of subordinating conjunctions are: "because", or: "before", "after", "although",
"though", "as", "since", and "because".
All right?
These are examples of subordinating conjunctions that we can use to make or create complex
sentences to solve the problem that we were originally trying to solve of a run-on sentence
or a comma splice.
Okay?
So now you're just so much smarter than when we started a few minutes ago.
You have learned four wonderful way to solve this very common problem.
Okay?
And, as I said, it is a serious problem.
Even though I'm smiling and I'm laughing, because I like to smile and laugh, it's still
a serious problem.
Okay?
So, use one of these methods to solve the problem, and that will be that.
And pay attention to your own writing in the next week or so; look at your emails, check
your writing.
Are you doing this?
And if not...
If so, fix it.
Okay?
Now you know how.
All right.
So, in order to master this, though, and make sure that you don't do this anymore, please
go to our website: www.engvid.com, and there, you can do a quiz on this.
And I highly recommend that, because the more practice you can get with it, the better you'll
get and also the easier it will become.
All right?
It won't seem just like a lot of words, like: Complex sentence, compound sentence; you'll
actually begin to understand that, especially when you combine it with this lesson.
If you're going...
If you need to, you can come back, watch the lesson; go back, do the quiz-okay?-until you
get it right, so that your English writing can be really excellent.
Okay?
So, thanks very much for watching.
Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, and share with your friends if you enjoyed
this lesson.
Okay?
Thanks very much for watching, and all the best with your English.
Bye for now.