Run-On Sentences

A complete sentence is a complete thought

A sentence fragment is a sentence that is missing one of our necessary components

A run on sentence is when two complete thoughts are connected.

For example "I was hungry I ate lunch." is two complete thoughts and therefore a run-on sentence

The easiest way to correct a run-on sentence is to separate it into two complete sentences using a period.

For example, if we take the sentence "I was hungry I ate lunch." we can break this sentence into two different sentences to fix it.

Instead of "I was hungry I ate lunch." break it into "I was hungry. I ate lunch."

Is there anything wrong with this sentence?

"The flowers are beautiful, they brighten the room."

If you said it's a run-on sentence then you're correct!

Even though this sentence is separated by a comma it is still two complete thoughts.

This can get a bit complicated so we're just going to look at two ways you can fix a sentence like this.

Our sentence is "The flowers are beautiful, they brighten the room." but how do we fix it?

We already know one way to fix run-on sentences is to add a period so let's try that. "The flowers are beautiful. They brighten the room."

This gives us two complete sentences with all the parts needed to make a complete sentence.

There is one more way we can fix this sentence. By adding a connecting word.

If we take our sentence "The flowers are beautiful, they brighten the room." we can add a connecting word to fix it.

These are words like because or so

If we rewrite our sentence as "The flowers are beautiful because they brighten the room." we can make this sentence one complete thought