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Run-on sentences, a la Shmoop. Run-on sentences are bad grammar everyone

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knows this except apparently for a few authors who think it's okay to throw proper punctuation

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out the door in the name of their craft leaving the reader to suffer as he or she struggles

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to figure out where one thought ends and the next begins.

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Whew. Now that we've survived an encounter with a run-on sentence, let's talk about

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what this particular piece of bad grammar actually...is.

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While some people think that run-on sentences are just long...

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...like, really, really, really long...

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...a run-on sentence actually occurs when sentences are smashed together without the benefit of

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any internal punctuation.

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Run-on sentences may induce confusion...

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...hysteria...

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...and even the urge to throw books...

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...so use extreme caution when constructing sentences.

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The nice thing about run-on sentences is that they are easily fixed, and we have a whole

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slew of tools to choose from...

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...including colons, coordinating conjunctions, dashes, periods, and semicolons.

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So, let's look at some examples of run-on sentences and how to fix 'em.

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Say we have the run-on sentence, "William Faulkner is a well-known American author he

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lived in Mississippi for most of his life you can visit his house in Oxford and see

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where he scribbled all over the bathroom wall."

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How can we fix this crime against grammar? Not to mention against poor Mr. Faulkner?

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Well, we could deploy several periods, so we end up with...

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..."William Faulkner is a well-known American author...period...He lived in Mississippi for

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most of his life...period...You can visit his house in Oxford and see where he scribbled

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all over the bathroom wall."

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Or, we could deploy some periods and a well-placed "who" to get...

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..."William Faulkner is a well-known American author who lived in Mississippi for most of

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his life...period...You can visit his house in Oxford and see where he scribbled all over

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the bathroom wall." Let's look at a different example. "Jim

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is a fan of Cormac McCarthy's novels however he had a big problem when he tried to read

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The Crossing half of that book is written in Spanish."

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Well, let's fix this grammar disaster.

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We could do this: "Jim is a big fan of Cormac McCarthy's novels...period...However...comma...

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he had a big problem when he tried to read The Crossing...colon...half of that book is

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written in Spanish."

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Or, we could do this: "Jim is a fan of Cormac McCarthy's novels...comma...although he had

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a big problem when he tried to read The Crossing...dash...half of that book is written in Spanish."

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Or, we could try door number 3: "Jim is a fan of Cormac McCarthy's novels...period...

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However...comma...he had a problem when he tried to read The Crossing because half of

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that book is written in Spanish." Run-on sentences can be difficult for the

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reader to comprehend.

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So, while most of us will never have a really good reason to deploy a run-on sentence...

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...this doesn't mean we won't encounter run-on sentences in literature.

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For example, take this lengthy entry from James Joyce's novel, Ulysses...

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"I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian

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girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I

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thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes..."

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Let's stop right there. That's fifty-eight words without the benefit of any internal

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punctuation, and while that may seem like a lot...

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...the truth is that Joyce's sentence actually continues for another fifty-three words. Holy

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moly. That gives us a total of one hundred and eleven words, no pauses, no stop until

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the very end. While we could never get away with writing

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like this...

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...because our English teachers would lynch us...

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...great authors with lots of critical acclaim and assorted Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes might

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decide that a particular story calls for run-on sentences.

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So, unless the literary critics start calling us "the next Ernest Hemingway", we need

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to stick to proper internal punctuation...

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...and avoid run-on sentences.

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