Understanding Commas: Comma Splices

Every writer has their own style, whether you realize it or not. If your usual writing focuses on short stories, your style will most likely be casual and flowy, allowing for an almost speech-like transcript. On the other hand, if you have had scientific research papers beaten into you by that biology class you took one time, it is more likely your style is formal and filled with straight-forward sentences and few flowery phrases. (Oo, look at that alliteration). Neither of these styles are better or worse than the other – although they may seem out of place in certain texts – but this time, we will be focusing on a common error that usually appears in casual, speech-like writing: comma splices.

Comma Splices

For me, writing in a casual style that mimics normal speech is very difficult. This is not because I don’t know what words to use but rather because it is hard to determine how to punctuate speech. When we speak, it is in perfect grammar 100% of the time. We constantly interrupt ourselves or are interrupted or leave sentences hanging without conclusion. We babble, change thoughts mid-sentence, and speak without pausing to consider if our pronouns still agree with our subject or if our verbs should be plural or singular based on what comes next. Basically, we are much more forgiving of grammar when speaking than we are when writing.

Which bring us to comma splices. A comma splice is what happens when you try to join two independent clauses using only a comma. It might look something like this:

I went to the store, I accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies.

The sentences “I went to the store” and “I accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies” are both independent clauses, meaning they can stand alone as complete sentences. When speaking, you might say these almost together; they are expressing the same train of thought. And, because of how you naturally pause in between the two sentences in speech, it might feel right to throw in a comma. Afterall, a comma is meant to indicate a slight pause, isn’t it?

While, yes, commas do indicate pauses, they can never be used alone to join two independent clauses. Luckily, comma splices are also super easy to correct. You can either replace the comma with a period or semi-colon or you can add a coordinating (e.g. and, or, nor, but, etc) or subordinating conjunction (e.g. whether, although, while, if, when, etc). So, let’s fix our sentence!

Period: I went to the store. I accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies.

Semi-colon: I went to the store; I accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies.

Coordinating conjunction: I went to the store, but I accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies.

Subordinating conjunction (2): When I went to the store, I accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies

It’s good to note that subordinating conjunctions can be used before either of the independent clauses and renders the one it is used on a dependent clause. “When I went to the store” can no longer stand alone as a sentence. It is a good idea to decide which independent clause is your main point (going to the store or buying cookies) and use the subordinating conjunction with the other clause.

Before we finish, I did want to point out an instance where you would not want to use a comma. When using a coordinating conjunction, you only use a comma when the sentence following the conjunction is an independent clause. This of course means it has its own subject and verb. In our example above, the subject for both clauses is “I”. As most writers know, if the subject is the same in both sentences, you can combine both independent clauses to make a longer sentence that has two verbs. The resulting sentence in our example would be:

I went to the store and accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies.

And, as you can see, there is no comma present in this sentence. This is because “accidently bought dog biscuits instead of cookies” is now a dependent clause and cannot stand alone without the first part of the sentence. Adding a comma here would interrupt the connection between the second verb and its subject. Just don’t do it!

Sources: https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/commas.asp

https://www.uc.utoronto.ca/comma-splices

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-writing/chapter/commas/#:~:text=Key%20Takeaways-,Key%20Points,a%20semicolon%2C%20or%20a%20period.