In an earlier post, I showed you how to identify and correct sentence fragments. Run-on sentences are the flip side of fragments. Where a fragment is not a complete sentence, a run-on sentence is two or more complete thoughts that are run together without punctuation. For example, this is a run-on sentence:
Ken asked if I wanted to schedule delivery of the desk he said delivery could be on Tuesday or Thursday.
There are two complete thoughts there. To eliminate the run-on sentence, you could write:
Ken asked if I wanted to schedule delivery of the desk. He said delivery could be on Tuesday or Thursday.
The fix for a run-on sentence is to insert proper punctuation. Often, that will be a period. However, it may also be correct to use a semi-colon or a comma with a conjunction:
Ken asked if I wanted to schedule delivery of the desk, and he said delivery could be on Tuesday or Thursday.
See how easy that is? The hard part may be identifying run-on sentences in your writing. If you write in a stream-of-consciousness style, you may find that you frequently construct run-on sentences without realizing it.
The server greeted me and smiled and told me about the daily specials then he took my beverage order and came back three minutes later with my soda and it was warm.
Whew! Can you please take a breath? In fact, that is a good way to catch run-on sentences in your writing: Read them out loud.
Punctuation signals you to pause or stop. As you read the above example, do you run out of breath? Or you may find yourself pausing or stopping at points during the sentence. Those are cues that your sentence is missing needed punctuation. For example, when I read this sentence, this is what it sounds like:
The server greeted me and smiled <stop> and told me about the daily specials <pause> then he took my beverage order <stop> and came back three minutes later with my soda <stop> and it was warm.
So I would rewrite the run-on sentence like this:
The server greeted me and smiled. He told me about the daily specials, then he took my beverage order. He came back three minutes later with my soda. The soda was warm.
That is not the only way that run-on sentence could be fixed, but it is one way.
Although you may think of run-on sentences as being long (and many of them are), it is not necessary for a sentence to be long to be a run-on sentence. For example, this is a run-on sentence:
There were 8 people in line we waited 12 minutes to check out.
That sentence is not very long, but it has two complete thoughts. It needs punctuation:
There were 8 people in line. We waited 12 minutes to check out.
or
There were 8 people in line, and we waited 12 minutes to check out.
To catch run-on sentences in your mystery shopper reports, read the report out loud. When you find yourself gasping for breath, reach for a punctuation mark and breathe easily.
This is one of a series of posts on grammar to help secret shoppers write better reports.