There are many solutions to this puzzle.  If you find one…………. look for another.

Have you ever read someone's paper and found that even though it was interesting you had trouble following what they were saying it seemed like the sentences were really long and sometimes there seemed to be words missing then you start to think there should be some punctuation around here somewhere there's nothing though and just when you think you can't take any more there it is?

I know that YOU know how to create complete sentences like:   Raymundo likes to swim in the ocean.  He's super afraid of sharks.  His fear makes him swim fast!

I know that YOU know how to combine sentences with a comma and a conjunction to make a compound sentence:  Raymundo likes to swim in the ocean, but he's super afraid of sharks.  His fear makes him swim fast!

Every once in awhile, though, Mrs. Bockius says she is seeing some of these in your papers:  Raymundo likes to swim in the ocean he's super afraid of sharks and his fear makes him swim fast!  This sentence has a special name...the RUN-ON.  You can see where these sentences get their name, because sometimes they just seem to keep going and going.  This can be very confusing or frustrating for a reader, so we want to keep run-ons out of our writing.

How do we catch those run-ons in our writing and how do we fix them?  Start by looking for longer sentences that have no punctuation before the end and ask yourself if there should be.  Is it really a series of sentences that need to be separated?  Remember that each subject and verb phrase that can stand alone needs to be separated from others in some way.  You can separate them by using these three methods:
a period, question mark or exclamation point to end a sentence and a capital letter to start a new one
      Raymundo likes to swim in the ocean.  He's super afraid of sharks. 

a comma and a conjunction to form a compound sentence  
      Raymundo likes to swim in the ocean, but he's super afraid of sharks. 

a semi-colon which looks like this;  there is no capital after a semi-colon.
      He's super afraid of sharks; his fear makes him swim fast!


Another way to catch run-ons is to look for long sentences that have a whole lot of conjunctions* OR hardly any at all:  
      A WHOLE LOT:  We usually leave the house at 8 o'clock but today we were late because the alarm didn't go off and we overslept and that means everyone was running around so it was confusing and people forgot things and it was all rushed and it was not a good way to start the day.  
      HARDLY ANY:    We usually leave the house at 8 o'clock today we were late because the alarm didn't go off we overslept that means everyone was running around first thing in the morning it's confusing and people forgot things it was all rushed it was not a good way to start the day. 
      TRY THIS INSTEAD:  We usually leave the house at 8 o'clock, but today we were late.  The alarm didn't go off!  That means everyone was running around first thing in the morning; it was confusing. People forgot things, and it was all rushed. It was not a good way to start the day.


YOU TRY:  Look through a sample of your writing and see if you can find and fix a run-on sentence.  If you can't find one, try to create one and then show one way you could correct it.  Post your run-on and correction in the comments section.  


*IF you need help remembering some or our most common conjunctions, remember FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).  I would also watch for "because".  Remember that conjunctions can be used in many ways.  We only use a comma before them if they are linking two complete thoughts that could stand alone.