Lakeland College
P.O. Box 359
Sheboygan, WI 53082-0359
Comma Splices
Comma splices are not a moral failing; they are a simple punctuation problem. You’ve taken two sentences (or “independent clauses”) and put them together into a single “compound” sentence. This is good. You’ve just punctuated your new sentence incorrectly.
If this is a big problem in your writing, you may want to spend time looking at each of your longer sentences – anything over two lines in length. Look for commas in the middle:
Don’t connect independent clauses with one lonely comma, that is called a comma splice.
Cover up everything after the comma, and then read the first section out loud. Then cover the first section, and read the second out loud.
Don’t connect independent
clauses with one lonely comma, that is called a comma splice.
Don’t connect
independent clauses with one lonely comma,
that is called a comma splice.
Do they both sound like sentences? If so, then you have a comma splice.
You
can fix a comma splice either by changing the punctuation or by adding some
connecting words. Take this comma splice:
He caressed her shoes, they made him feel inadequate.
You can fix it by replacing the comma with a period or almost any other punctuation mark:
He caressed her shoes. They made him feel inadequate.
He caressed her shoes; they made him feel inadequate.
Even better, you can add connecting words. If your connecting word is a coordinating conjunction – and, but, or, nor, yet, so, for – you get to keep your comma! Otherwise, dump it:
He caressed her shoes, and they made him feel inadequate.
He caressed her shoes, but they made him feel inadequate.
He caressed her shoes because they made him feel inadequate.
He caressed her shoes although they made him feel inadequate.
Which marks or words should you use? It all depends on what you are trying to say. You have decided to link two ideas in a compound sentence, you must show how they go together.
(Now before you leave, please fix the comma splice in the preceding sentence.)