For Maddy and I’s mini lesson, we chose to do a lesson on run on sentences. Run on sentences are a very common problem for many writers and I have to admit I have been guilty of run on sentences. In our lesson we aim to help fix any problems people may have. We talk about how using punctuation can easily fix run on sentences, and how there are certain times and places to use different types of punctuations. A run on sentence, by definition, is “a written sequence of two or more main clauses that are notseparated by a period or semicolon or joined by a conjunction” (www.dictionary.com). As you can see in the definition, it talks about how it is two or more main clauses that are not seperated in any way, which means the fix to this problem is actually quite simple. An example of a fix: The dog is brown he is short. The two main clauses in this sentence are that the dog is brown and short. The fix here has a couple different variations that could be applied. One would be this: The dog is brown and he is short. Another fix could be turning this one sentence into two seperate sentences using a period: The dog is brown. The dog is short. With two sentences we are clearly spacing out our ideas and no longer have a run on sentence as each sentence has just one main clause. If you do not want to make two seperate sentences than you can use conjuctions such as and, but, or, nor, yet etc. This shows that although there are two different clauses in the same sentence, they are spaced out correctly but it also shows that they are connected in some way, as they are part of the same sentence. Sometimes run ons can be hard to spot, and that once they are spotted it can be such an easy fix. The way I spot run on sentences is I will reread any sentence that sounds funky to me. Most of the time run on sentences feel weird to say outloud as they do not flow properly. When we talk to people and we use a lot of “ands and buts” yet run on senetences do not have any of these. These type of sentences almost feel unnatural and not how people would talk. In our handout we are having the class figure out if a sentence is a run on or not, and I think it is relatively easy to see if it is not your own writing, but sometimes when we write, we do not recongize our own mistakes, so after every sentence you write you should reread it just to make sure it flows properly and that there is proper puncutation. As long as you rememeber to use punctuation and use conjuctions regularly you should be fine when it comes to avoiding writing run on sentences and writing more solid structurual pieces.
