As you can infer from the title, one of my biggest grammar mistakes is run-on.
I always make such mistakes because i used to write in oral english style and in oral english, nobody cares about run-on. However, one of my English tutor pointed that out and told me that was a serious problem. Then I did some research and i found that if we write two independent clauses in one sentence, we must add punctuation. We can use a semicolon or a full-stop to seperate them. We can also add a co-ordinating conjuction or trasition words. Anyway, we cannot put two independent clauses in one single sentence. For example, i used to say "I like the way she writes, she is such a creative genius!" I used to think this sentence is OK because i used to talk like that. But then i realize this is a run-on sentence and i should do some corrections. Like "I like the way she wirtes. She is such a creative genius!"
In addition, i found that the length of a sentence totally has nothing to do with whether it is a run-on sentence. As long as you write it correctly. So i used to avoid writing long sentences, but now i think i can handle long sentences better than before.
if you have the same problem, you can go to http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/exercises/run-ons_ex1.htm to do some exercises. For me, i found it useful!
Here is the exercise:
Questions
1.) My academic advisor told me not to take 18 credit hours for the fall semester I'm regretting not having listened to her.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
2.) My cat was upset all day he didn't get canned food for breakfast.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
3.) Organizations that promise students a scholarship if they pay an extraordinarily high application fee are most likely scams.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
4.) Because Rose was late for the all-you-can-eat buffet, she had to order from the main menu.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
5.) The student fell asleep in class everyone thought this was rude behavior.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
6.) Although an immigration lawyer might help me to stay in this country, his fees are too expensive for me to afford.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
7.) I like the history class because the material is explained so well.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
8.) We followed the map we ended up in Canada instead.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
9.) Although the trip to Montreal was not very well planned, we had a great time.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
10.) I received an A on my Psychology test I am happy.
a.) Run-on
b.) Complete sentence
My ans:
aabbabbaba
5 comments:
haha, thanks for your comment.
And for your work,it is very helpful to me. these exercises are very good. In addition,when we write an essay, we can write some simple sentences. In this way, we can not only aviod to write incompleted sentences, it is also helpful to express our ideas clearly.
^^
Hi! I do agree with what Tianren mentioned above. It is not necessary for us to write super long complex sentences to impress our readers. Simple sentences will be fine as long as we do not make any careless grammar mistakes and able to convey the message to readers. However, I didnt mean that we should forget bout complex sentences.We should try to write. If you have no confident in writing complex sentences(like me), try to write the in simple sentences and after that join them using sentence connectors.
Regarding run-on, the only way we can avoid it is always double check our sentences and think twice before putting a comma. Lastly, always remind ourselves that oral English is different from our writing :)
Cheers~~
Zheng ~.~
Thanks for your comment.^^
Happy mooncake festival~
I think you the word "ok" is not a formal word although it is always used in speaking.
Punctuation mark is very important to Enlish language. If there is a paragraph or passage without punctuation mark, it is very difficult to understand and read.So,we should put punctuation mark at the suitable place of the sentences or we will make our readers breathless.
Hi, this is my first comment:-P Run-on problem is easily ignored because people can simply avoid run-on problem by using microsoft office word auto-checking program. However, there is no auto-checking in our test, so I shall be more careful about my run-on problem as well. :-)
Hi! No offence, but i think "OK" is not a suitable word to be used in the article as well. Maybe you could change the word to "alright'. =) Also, i think there is one spelling error in your article. You have spelled "writes" as "wirtes". Overall, I think the instruction given in avoiding the mistake of run-on is quite clear. =)
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