The document discusses the concept of comma splices (c/s) and advises against them, highlighting their potential to confuse readers and make writers appear uneducated. It emphasizes the importance of using appropriate punctuation, such as periods, semi-colons, colons, or conjunctions, to link complete sentences effectively. The author uses humorous and relatable examples to illustrate the difference between complete and incomplete sentences, urging readers to avoid c/s to maintain clarity in writing.

1. The Dread Comma Splice
Your instructor writes c/s on your page, c/s C/S
C/S! C/S!!

2. Instructor says It's Easy
Instructor says “You can't do that. See, that's two
sentences put together as if they were only one.
Where that comma is, you must put a period,
semi-colon, colon, or conjunction.”
Instructor actually cares about your success in
getting your ideas across to readers. You
actually care about putting Instructor's head in a
bottle.

3. Don't Do It
Because Instructor is right. Instructor is always
right.
And you can't hear Instructor telling you what to if
his head is in a bottle. First you would see the
underside of his lips pressed against the glass,
then his eyes bug out, and then he would
charge you, and we all know running with glass
is dangerous. So is a run-on sentence. That's
what he's been trying to say all along. They can
get you into trouble. He only wants to save you
from yourself.

4. Not Right, Not Right At All
A run-on sentence happens when you use a
comma splice, which involves using a comma to
link two complete sentences together. It is so
wrong. Just so, so wrong.

5. Why Is C/S So Very Wrong?
Because it makes you sound insane.

6. And Thus
It makes the narrator or character saying the runon sentence with a c/s sound insane. Is that
what you want, seriously?
When the reader reads a lot of c/s sentences, the
reader feels insane. When Instructor reads a lot
of them year after year, Instructor feels really,
really insane.

7. We Speak With Pauses
Can you imagine someone talking without
pauses? Who does that? Think about it.

8. Punctuation Tells When To Pause
A comma tells us to barely pause, but not be very
serious about it, just sort of wishy washy, like -yeah, well, I'm sorta pausing, but you ain't
gonna make me pause very long, bitch.

9. When You Get Serious About
Pausing
Hit up your friend Semi-colon. Or your even
stronger friend Colon, or your bigger, badder
friend, Period. You might even need to call in
the Conjunction crowd. But Comma is a wus.
Forget Comma. Comma is just sitting there in
between two complete sentences, grinning,
waiting to get you in trouble with Instructor.

10. We Can Feel What Is Incomplete
While Amy skated at the rink for people over 10
feet tall
What.....? While Amy skated, what? What
Happened? Something feels off. You can't just
go up to someone and say that. They'll wait and
stare at you and want to put your head in a can.
That's not good, because cans eventually leak
aluminum, and you might start to act weird once
it turns your brain into metal.

11. We Don't Like Incomplete
Whenever I feed the bushes with my special fish
sauce

12. We Like Complete
Whenever I feed the bushes with my special fish
sauce, they start opening and closing their
blossoms, saying Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh.

13. So, Tell Me, What Is Complete
Here?
When Mary leaked
Whenever Julie broke her noggin
Or else
And that was all she wrote

14. Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.
So, you could add more to any of those
fragments. Yes, Fragments. Incomplete
sentences.
Just feel how they make your body react. You feel
like you should have more. Like you've been
cheated, if that's all you get. Like you should
sue. Someone needs to give you what you
deserve, and not leave you hanging like that.
Right?

15. How Bout These?
I am sometimes a wombat.
You never answer the door when I knock with my
butt.
Spring is a ridiculous idea.
Perhaps you should invite a lonely skyscraper for
tea.

16. You Know The Difference. I Know
You Do.
You can feel it in your body, right? Some
sentences feel like they are done, and there is
nothing missing, nothing left out, nothing lurking
behind the corner ready to pounce. It's all there,
laid out in the open for all to see. You feel safe.
You would buy something from a complete
sentence. You would hang out with it.

17. You Know You're Too Good For
That
You would not hang out with an incomplete
sentence, because you never would know what
it would be up to next. You would always feel
like it wasn't telling you the whole story. You
would always wonder, but it would remain
incommunicative. You would say: We need to
talk. And it would look at you like, yeah, right. I
don't do that, bitch. And it would look away, and
you'd be supposed to act like that was OK.

18. Feel The Difference Between
Complete and Incomplete
Sentences, With Your Body
And that's about all you really need to know to
avoid writing comma splices. Other than in rare
circumstances, best avoided unless you know
exactly what you're doing, just don't ever
combine two complete sentences with a
comma.
It's that easy.
Cool.

19. If You See Two Complete
Sentences
Standing around looking tough, but lonely, and
you want to match-make, sure, you can hook
them up. Just use a semi-colon, if the two
sentences are a lot a alike, and seem like they
would be good friends.
The house is the ugliest color of blue I have ever
seen. The painter is a mongoose.
That's two sentences, and a semi-colon would
treat them just fine.

20. If One Sentence Is Explaining
. . . or giving examples of the sentence before it,
consider getting them together over a cup of hot
colon.
I often don't fit into the crowd. My head is a
spinning plate and it must always stay in motion.

21. Semi-Colons And Colons Bring
Complete Sentences Together
The house is the ugliest color of blue I have ever
seen; the painter is a mongoose.
I often don't fit into the crowd: my head is a
spinning plate and it must always stay in motion.
Those are happy couples, not co-dependent, but
independent, living their own lives, and so are
complete sentences joined by conjunctions like
so:

22. Conjunctions Make Good GoBetweens
When you are trying to escape the dreaded c/s,
and Semi-Colon and Colon are acting huffy and
seem too stiff and formal, call in
And But If Or When

23. Even A Period Will Do
If you really want a serious pause. Periods don't
play around. They really mean it when they say
STOP
.

24. So, You Can Use
A semi-colon, colon, conjunction, or period to
combine two complete sentences. You can
even use a dash if you can't figure out what the
hell else to use, in one of those really wonky
sentences only you could write. You know how
you are.

25. You Just Can't Use A
What. You know what.
A COMMA.
Or Instructor will put your head in a box. Instructor
knows how to tie a really good knot. Try untying
your head box without being able to see it.
Better instead to learn how to avoid a c/s.

26. Now, Practice
What punctuation would you chose to combine
these sentences?
You are going to be bigger than Instructor one
day. You are smarter than Instructor, really.
You don't like it when people talk without
breathing, ever ever ever breathing. That's what
writing comma splices sounds like.

27. You Are Right
Many ways are correct. Like:
You are going to be bigger than Instructor one
day; you are smarter than Instructor, really.
You don't like it when people talk without
breathing, ever ever ever breathing: that's what
writing comma splices sounds like.

28. This Is Wrong
A man is walking down the street talking to you,
you don't want to talk to him because he never
pauses in between his sentences.
What's wrong with that sentence? It's a damn c/s
is what it is. Why? Because it's two complete
sentences joined with a comma. Only someone
really odd would talk like that, without pausing
between sentences. Sure, I care about odd
people too. I'm not a bad person. But, still. . . .

29. These Are Correct
Nancy wanted to marry Ted, but Ted didn't like
her use of comma splices and cut her off.
Ted wanted to marry Nancy, so Ted taught Nancy
how to write the way she spoke, intelligently,
with poise.
Ted and Nancy married; they became nudists.
Ted and Nancy got arrested: they decided to wear
clothing after that, but they didn't like it one bit.

30. Commas Belong
Commas are fine little creatures. We love the little
buggers, those commas. But we don't love them
when they get mischievous and get into places
they don't belong, like in between two complete
sentences. Then, we kill them. Totally obliterate
them. We replace them with other objects of our
love, semi-colons, colons, periods, and
conjunctions. One big happy family.

31. C/S
Is just using a comma as a juncture between two
complete sentences, making the reader get
confused, feel insane, distrust you, think you are
not educated, throw out everything else you
wrote, and go find someone else to love. Is that
what you want? I think not. I think not indeed.

32. Learn More
From Tantra Bensko, the maker of this
presentation, at
http://onlinewritingacademy.weebly.com