It’s the fifth slide of your instructor’s PowerPoint over run-ons. It sure seems like she’s running on about—well—run-ons. Suddenly, she mentions the phrase comma splices. What’s that? is your last thought before you zone out.
Don’t zone out yet. If you’ve never heard of a comma splice before, don’t worry; you’re not alone. Here’s an example of a comma splice:
My grades are very good this semester, my social life rates as a C.
A comma splice is when a poor, weak comma is used to separate two complete sentences. A comma splice happens when you ask the poor, abused comma to do too much. For example, is it a good idea to carry ten bags of groceries at the same time? Well, that’s what happens when we put a comma in place of a stronger punctuation mark.
This is a sad comma. It doesn’t belong there.
Please don’t make English cry. Correct your comma splices and make English happy again.
Let’s go back to the first example:
My grades are very good this semester, my social life rates as a C.
Place your finger over the comma. Now, look at the phrase to the left of the comma:
My grades are very good this semester
Now look at the phrase to the right of the comma:
my social life rates as a C.
Both of these phrases are independent clauses. That means they can stand alone as sentences, all by themselves. So, a comma splice is a type of run-on sentence in which the writer has accidentally made English sad by using a comma instead of correctly separating the two sentences.
How do you make English happy again? Correct your comma splices.
There are four different ways to do this:
- The easiest way is to use a period between those two independent clauses, like this:
My grades are very good this semester. My social life rates as a C.
- Another way to correct a comma splice is to use a semicolon between the two independent clauses:
My grades are very good this semester; my social life rates as a C.
- The third way to correct a comma splice is to add a coordinating conjunction between the two independent clauses:
My grades are very good this semester, but my social life rates as a C.
You can remember coordinating conjunction by the word FANBOYS—not FANGIRLS, but FANBOYS. These conjunctions are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
- The fourth way to correct a comma splice is to add a subordinating conjunction.
Although my social life rates as a C, my grades are very good this semester.
A subordinating conjunction is a word that makes one phrase dependent on the other. Some examples of subordinating conjunctions include words like although, after, because, though, while, and so on.
Remember—a sentence can only express one complete thought at a time. It can multitask a little, but not too much. As you write, look at each phrase and ask yourself, “Is this a complete sentence? Does it express one thought?” If it does, you’re probably fine. If you have a number of thoughts squashed together with commas here and there, you probably have a comma splice somewhere. So, give the poor comma a rest. Separate each complete thought into a different sentence by using either a period, a semicolon, a coordinating conjunction, or a subordinating conjunction.
Then everyone will be happy again.