One common mistake I found myself making throughout the start of English 110 was comma splices. I had never heard of these before, but it’s really common trend I catch myself doing constantly throughout my writing. What exactly is a comma splice? A comma splice looks like a complete sentence, however a comma splice is when you connect join two independent clauses with a comma. An independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb and expresses a complete through. An independent clause can be a complete sentence. When getting familiar with comma splices, you also need to be familiar with dependent clauses, which is a clause that cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence, they depend on something else to complete it. There are a couple different ways to correct comma splices. You can replace the comma with a period to create to separate sentences. You can also add a coordinating conjunction following the comma (FANBOYS-for, and, nor, boy, or, yet, so). You could additionally replace with a semicolon and a conjunctive adverb (therefore, then, however).  

Ever since I was introduced and educated on comma splices now I constantly catch myself making this common error as I write everyday. I have to go back, rethink, and correct myself by following one of the three ways I mentioned before to fix these comma splices.

Look below to see errors of my comma splices from Essay #1, and how I corrected them:

Incorrect: “Social cohesion works towards the sense of well being amongst others, it creates a form of unity and helps promote trust.“

Correct: “Social cohesion works towards the sense of well being amongst others, and it creates a form of unity and helps promote trust.”

 

Incorrect: “Conversely, in South Africa, an organization called loveLife geared towards the youth just focused on education around having safe sex, it rarely talked about HIV and prevention.”

Correct: “Conversely, in South Africa, an organization called loveLife geared towards the youth just focused on education around having safe sex, but it rarely talked about HIV and prevention.”

 

Incorrect: “People need to realize that they are not alone, communication and the idea of social cohesion is the number one thing necessary to help raise awareness and help people with mental illness heal”

Correct: “People need to realize that they are not alone; however communication and the idea of social cohesion is the number one thing necessary to help raise awareness and help people with mental illness heal”

 

Click on the link below to view my lesson presentation on comma splices:

Comma Splice Presentation