Language Center Program, Writing Tips
Volunteer State Community College | Division of Humanities
A run-on (i.e., fusion) occurs anytime you have joined two complete sentences without the correct punctuation (i.e., a period, semicolon, or comma and coordinating conjunction). In order to identify a run-on, you must know the definition of a sentence. A general definition of a sentence is that a sentence must have a subject, a verb, and express a complete idea. Another way of defining a sentence is that it must answer the question "Who (or what) does what?"
If run-ons are a frequent problem for you, I suggest that you go through your entire paper, identifying the subject (the "who"), the verb (the "does"), and the complete idea (the "what") in every word group punctuated as a sentence. Whenever you find two or more subject-verb-complete idea sets in a single sentence, make sure that you have used the correct punctuation. An added benefit of this process is that it will also help you identify sentence fragments.
