Avoiding the comma splice
April 29th 2008 16:18
The comma splice is a common error. As I mentioned in a previous post, comma splices are acceptable, and even common, in literary writing (Jose Saramago comes to mind*). But you should avoid comma splices in formal writing, such as academic essays, articles, and business writing. Perhaps I'm strict, but I also think that comma splices should be avoided in blogs, excluding personal blogs/journals--particularly those with a poetic or informal style.
Identifying a comma splice is easy: it occurs when commas join two or more independent clauses. (An independent clause is a complete sentence in itself; it contains a complete thought.) Correcting a comma splice is usually a simple matter of replacing the comma with another punctuation mark and/or a conjunction. The following sentence has a comma splice:
The transit union went on strike last night, I had to take a taxi cab home.
The examples below illustrate how to rewrite the sentence correctly.
1. Use a period.
The transit union went on strike last night. I had to take a taxi cab home.
This is the most straightforward method. Both clauses are complete sentences, so punctuate them both as such.
2. Use a semicolon.
The transit union went on strike last night; I had to take a taxi cab home.
A semicolon is strong enough to join independent clauses; a comma is not strong enough to join them.
3. Use a conjunction (conjunctive adverb).
The transit union went on strike last night, so I had to take a taxi cab home.
A conjunctive adverb is just an adverb that is used to join independent clauses. When using conjunctive adverbs such as "therefore", "however", "otherwise", and "thus", use a semicolon to separate the clauses:
The transit union went on strike last night; thus, I had to take a taxi cab home.
Here is another use of the conjunctive adverb:
The transit union went on strike last night; however, my colleague was kind enough to drive me home.
4. Make one clause a subordinate clause.
Because the transit union went on strike last night, I had to take a taxi cab home.**
"Because the transit union went on strike last night" is the subordinate clause because it depends on the main clause, "I had to take a taxi cab home". The former is an incomplete sentence; the latter is a grammatically complete sentence.
You can make the sentence even simpler:
I had to take a taxi cab home last night because the transit union went on strike.
*Here's an excerpt from Saramago's Blindness: "The green light came on at last, the cars moved off briskly, but then it became clear that not all of them were equally quick off the mark. The car at the head of the middle lane has stopped, there must be some mechanical fault, a loose accelerator pedal, a gear lever that has stuck, problem with the suspension, jammed brakes, breakdown in the electric circuit, unless he has simply run out of gas, it would not be the first time such a thing has happened."
**You might have been taught, as I was, that sentences should not begin with "because". This is not true, and teachers who say this are guilty of hypercorrection. Starting a sentence with "because" is wrong only when it breaks up a complete sentence, creating a sentence fragment: "I had to take a taxi cab home last night. Because the transit union went on strike."
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