COMMA SPLICES       

(you will find exercises below)

Comma splices are one of the most common sentence boundary errors, but these can also be avoided if you try reading your sentences out loud (remember, do it slowly!). 

A comma splice happens when you put a comma between two independent clauses:

The business office used to be located in Old Main, now it is located on the first floor of Wildy Hall.

Read it out loud—no doubt you will hear something that sounds like two sentences. This is a comma splice because there is an independent clause on either side of the comma.  If two sentences can stand alone by themselves, you need to separate them either with a period, a semicolon, or with a connecting word such as a coordinating conjunction:

  1. The business office used to be located in Old Main. Now it is located on the first floor of Wildy Hall.
  2. The business office used to be located in Old Main; now it is located on the first floor of Wildy Hall.
  3. The business office used to be located in Old Main, but now it is located on the first floor of Wildy Hall.

 

COMMA SPLICE EXERCISE

Try the following exercise to test yourself with comma splices, and mark “C” if the sentence is correct.

1. Classes start on August 28th this year, the last day of class before finals start is December 8th.

2. I have tried to qualify for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire seven times, but I can never answer the questions quickly enough.

3. Students sometimes complain about the food in Ames Cafeteria, however, there is always something to please most students.

4. Since Amanda has volleyball practice everyday at 3:00, she can’t take late afternoon classes.

5. Jason wants to try out for the play in the fall, he acted a lot in high school, and several people have told him he is very talented.

6. Dr. Samarco will be teaching Media Ethics next semester, it’s definitely a class you should take if you are thinking of minoring in journalism.

7. Leonardo DiCaprio is one of my favorite actors, I have seen Romeo and Juliet eight times because of him!

8. Email is changing the way we communicate in the twentieth-century, and some experts predict that people will talk to each other even less in the future.

                      GET THE ANSWERS TO
THE COMMA SPLICE EXERCISE!