Ever wonder why we can't just write the way we talk?
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could? For most of us, however, writing the
way we talk isn’t a great idea. Just listen to Boomhower from King of the Hill as he calls 911.
Can you imagine an academic paper written Boomhower
style?
No. Definitely not.
This may be unwelcome news, but readers do have expectations
of writers, and those expectations change from setting to setting. For example,
if we read a creative piece—say The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain—we likely would have more
patience with the material than if we read a news article in a periodical
(magazine or newspaper) or a professional web page. Readers’ expectations
change according to the setting. You might have a group of readers who watch Family Guy or read comic books, and
those readers would still expect a more formal writing style if they read your
college paper.
The sentences need to be clear, first of all. Verlyn Klinkenborg puts it this way in his
book Several Short Sentences about Writing: “The only link between you and the
reader is the sentence you’re making” (4).
Among many other things, you want to make sure your
sentences avoid fragments, fused sentences, and comma splices. These three
culprits, though not the only writing villains out there, can derail even the savviest
of writers.
Fragments are words and phrases that are punctuated like
sentences but are not truly sentences. A fused sentence is two sentences joined to
make one sentence; it should be punctuated where the two sentences come
together but is not. And a comma splice is two or more sentences
that are joined by a comma when they should have a semi-colon (;) instead—commas
are not always strong enough to hold two sentences together. These writing blunders do come closer to
how we speak but are certain to cause confusion for our readers. For example,
we start and stop when we talk all of the time, and our listener clues us in
when we need to elaborate. In regards to fragments, our listener usually
intuits our meaning without requiring the speaker to use complete sentences.
Here’s an example:
“Got your dog?”
“Sure enough,” Michelle replies.
Phrases like “Got your keys?” and “Sure enough” are
fragments. When people are speaking directly to each other, these phrases work
well. In writing, that understanding between writer and reader is different.
For one thing, the writer writes in a different time and space than the reader
reads the work. There is no live conversation, no real time interaction, no
body language, and no cues for the speaker and audience to exchange. Therefore,
what was intuitive in speech is just confusing on the written page.
Fused sentences wreak havoc because these are the never-ending
sentences readers need a break between thoughts they also need to understand
which information within a sentence is most important, such as if the sentence
mentions a major accident, compared to the rest of the sentence. If punctuation
isn’t used properly, the reader’s eyes will tire while reading at best at
worst, the reader could become confused by the passage and stop reading. No one
wants that. (By the way, how could you fix this portion of the blog so that
there are no fused sentences in here?)
Of course, your college professor will not stop reading
your work; that professor will read the entire paper. But if you never fix
these errors and get good practice in now, you’re likely to commit the same
errors on a cover letter and/or resume, and your prospective boss will stop reading your job application.
The third, and likely the sneakiest, of sentence flaws is
the comma splice. The word splice itself
means to connect two things.
A comma splice occurs when two or more sentences are joined by only a comma.
The problem is that a comma alone cannot connect two complete sentences. A comma needs a coordinating conjunction to complete the job (and, but, or nor, for, yet, or so). Because commas are the most versatile punctuation marks
we use, it’s easy to stick them everywhere in writing; however, it’s important
to use them appropriately.
In the professional world, just remember the Sweet Brown motto: “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
Put it in a more
professional way—“No one at work has time to
figure out what you meant to say; they only read the words you actually wrote
in the way you wrote them.” So, if your writing features fragments, fused
sentences, and comma splices, your job application or your brilliant,
cost-saving proposal may end up in a different pile than you had hoped. And
truly, you ain’t got time for that.
Don’t know how to fix these errors? Well, that’s why these blog posts are following the Dirty Dozen topics. We offer a workshop on how to identify and fix these three errors on Monday, September 11, at 11 a.m. in the Davis Library's Seminar Room. The workshop is repeated on Tuesday, September 2, at 8 p.m., in the same location. Additionally, you can use any of these resources to help you revise fragments, fused sentences, and comma splices:
Dirty Dozen Powerpoint
Sentence Fragments
Fused Sentences and Comma Splices
Checklist for Effective Sentences
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