A comment on a student paper that you may find perhaps useful:
If you find yourself naturally pausing, there is likely a comma or semicolon needed. (Read that last sentence aloud right now; do you hear a pause?) Could the parts after and before the pause be complete sentences? If so, it is a compound sentence; put a semicolon at the pause. If either side of the pause could not be a complete sentence, this is a complex sentence; you need a comma. If you find that you have multiple pauses, look carefully at how long your sentence is. You may be trying to put too many ideas in a single sentence.
That is probably the best explanation I've encountered addressing this issue.
ReplyDeleteMy English 101 prof had Strunk & White's on his book list. I still have my copy and used it constantly while working at a local museum where I wrote quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteI have a reproduction of "Rules for Using English Good" from a 1968 issue of "Read Magazine", with twenty rules, the expression of each one violates the rule it expresses. As I would have said, "this is a violation of Rule 9, "Don't write run on sentences you must punctuate carefully."
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