English Grammar Demystified - A Self Teaching Guide

8 English Grammar Demystifi ed

MEMO

From: Claire

To : G i n o

Subject: Offi ce Supplies

We are ordering tomorrow for the third quarter. What offi ce supplies will

you need? Please include all paper goods as well as computer supplies and

printer ink. Please e-mail me or place your order on my desk by 4 P.M.

Thanks,

Claire

RUN-ON SENTENCES

If fragments are pieces of sentences, run-ons are too many pieces running together.
Have you ever seen or written a sentence such as the following?

Our new boss gave us his list of procedures some were already in our schedule.

Run-on sentences are very confusing to read since you don’t know where one fi n-
ishes and another starts. The two thoughts in this sentence could each stand alone:

Our new boss gave us his list of procedures. Some were already in our

schedule.

Or since the thoughts are closely connected, they could be combined using a punc-
tuation mark as shown in the following examples. (You’ll learn much more about
this in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.)

Our new boss gave us his list of procedures; some were already in our schedule.

Our new boss gave us a list of procedures, but some were already in our

schedule.

Another kind of sentence error is called a “comma fault” because sentences are
strung together with the use of commas. For example: