A common error in writing is to use commas to join sentences. For example, all of these are wrong:

1. Every morning, I wake up early, do the morning exercise in the garden.
2. It is a personal choice, it depends on the individual.
3. Everybody likes John, he’s a nice guy.
4. We need to find new drugs to fight disease, some diseases are resisting our current drugs.
5. I stink, I need to take a shower.

Use a full stop

We need to fix these sentences. The easiest way is to use a full stop (period).

1. Every morning, I wake up early. I do my morning exercise in the garden.
2. It is a personal choice. It depends on the individual.
3. Everybody likes John. He’s a nice guy.
4. We need to find new drugs to fight disease. Some diseases are resisting our current drugs.
5. I stink. I need to take a shower.

Join with “so, and, because”

Another way to to join the two parts with coordinating words such as “and,” “so,” or “because.” You might need to rewrite the sentence a little.

1. Every morning, I wake up early and do my morning exercise in the garden.
2. Everybody likes John because he’s a nice guy.
3. We need to find new drugs to fight disease because many diseases are becoming resistant to our current drugs.
4. I need to take a shower because I stink

Use colons or semicolons

Another way to to join the two parts is to use colons (:) or semicolons (;)

• It is a personal choice: it depends on the individual.

What would you like to do now?

• Have a look at another error: Fragments.

Visit these websites for more on comma splices. Some of them have good exercises.

• http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_07.htm
  
• http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/comma-splice.aspx
• http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/runons.htm
• http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/comma_splices.htm