The Single Most Frequent Mechanical Error^*

^*in one instructor’s experience

Run-on sentences are, without a doubt, the single most frequently occurring mechanical error made by students and others in their writing.

Most people find grammatical explanations of run-on sentences difficult to understand and absorb. Here are five simple questions you can use to determine whether a sentence you have written is a run-on:

1. Does the sentence (the words between two periods) have more than one main idea?
2. If I try to read the sentence aloud, am I breathless by the time I finish?
3. Does the sentence have more than one “and” — or “and” and “but” in combination?
4. Can the sentence under consideration be broken down into two or more shorter sentences?
5. Do the resulting shorter sentences sound more focused and forceful?

Many people mistakenly believe that longer, more complicated sentences sound more authoritative than shorter, more direct sentences. They believe that only long, complicated sentences are taken seriously. This is simply not true. With the possible exception of certain types of fiction, all writing, at its best, is simple and direct. To write in this manner, you must learn to first recognize and then eliminate run-on sentences.

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