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Understanding the Basic Sentence

If you are not familiar with any of the following terms, look them up in the Guide to Grammar Terminology.

• comma splice
• fragment
• complete sentence
• fused sentence
• run-on sentence

This worksheet will help you understand the most basic concept in writing: the correct punctuation of complete sentences. A complete sentence has the following characteristics:

• It contains both a subject and a verb.
• It expresses a complete thought – a free standing, self-contained idea.

There are two ways a sentence can be mis-punctuated: as a fragment or as a run-on.

Lesson Concept 1: Identify and correct each fragment. In a sentence fragment something less than a sentence has been punctuated as though it were a complete sentence.

Example: Haleemah found a cat. Which she promptly took home.

The fragment which she promptly took home contains both a subject and a verb, but it cannot stand alone as a self-contained idea. Most fragments are continuations of the preceding sentence, so the easiest way to correct the fragments is to attach them to the preceding sentence.

Correction: Haleemah found a cat, which she promptly took home.

Lesson Concept 2: Identify and correct run-ons. In a run-on, two complete sentences have been joined together incorrectly and punctuated as though they were a single sentence.

Example: The principal liked my idea, she said she would take it to the board of educators for approval.

This kind of run-on is called a comma splice because it incorrectly uses a comma to join two complete sentences. If two sentences had been put together without any punctuation at all, it would be another kind of run-on called a fused sentence.

Correction: The principal liked my idea; she said she would take it to the board of educators for approval.

Writers sometimes create run-ons when they try to keep closely related ideas together within the same sentence. A good way to achieve the same goal is to join the related sentences together with a semicolon (;).

excerpts from A Commonsense Guide to Grammar and Usage pg. 14 & 15

*Some text altered for the lesson