 Run-On Sentences?)
Every writer has their quirks and foibles, and one of my grammatical sins is relying on an abundance of run-on sentences — but I have a good reason for it. Throughout high school and a bit of college, I took Latin classes. After getting a firm foundation in grammar and vocabulary basics, we moved into translating poetry and prose. Latin prose is notorious for especially lengthy sentences. The long sentences composed by Roman scholar and statesman Cicero are a rite of passage for Latin students, with examples full of digressions and overlapping clauses and multiple verb tenses. After being immersed in Caesar and Cicero, I found my English sentences got longer and longer. I am, with the help of editors, working on brevity.
A run-on sentence, as defined by the Sweetland Center for Writing at the University of Michigan, is “two or more independent clauses incorrectly presented in a single sentence.” It’s a common error, especially when students start to express more complex ideas. Consider a sentence in a hypothetical book report about Pride and Prejudice:
Spot the issue? There are a few ways to fix it. The two clauses are connected, but they present two different ideas. You can separate them into two sentences, or use a comma and a conjunction.
A semicolon would fix the run-on sentence as well; it requires two complete clauses on either side of it and no conjunction. Avoid inserting just a comma, without a conjunction, because that would create the separate issue of a comma splice. In some cases, however, you can use subordinating conjunctions, such as “while,” “when,” “because,” “although,” and “since,” without a comma.
Outside of the prescribed grammar rules, a run-on sentence may be identified as a sentence with too many ideas stuffed into it. If your sentences are running into three lines of text, try breaking up the clauses.
Some acclaimed authors are known for lengthy and meandering sentences, but we can’t all write like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, or Gabriel García Márquez. For the rest of us, short sentences provide momentum. Mixing up sentence structure also can be a fun writing challenge. You don’t have to give up your long sentences entirely — I certainly haven’t — but a skilled writer knows how to vary their style and break grammar rules when it enhances their storytelling.
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