One of my errors in the first essay that I have always had trouble with is run-on sentences. A fused or run-on sentence is when two or more independent clauses are joined together without an appropriate punctuation or conjunction. There are at least four ways to correct a run-on sentence. The first way is to separate them into two different sentences by putting a period at the end of the first subject and the verb group. After which, you capitalize the next letter. For example, instead of writing Nathan is a kind young man, he really loves animals. you would write Nathan is a kind young man. He really loves animals. In a second way sometimes two sentences are very close in meaning, therefore, full end-stop punctuation would not work. Instead, a semicolon can be used to separate the …show more content…
sentences. For example, It was a beautiful day; there was not a cloud in the sky. A run-on sentence can also be prevented by using a comma and a coordinate conjunction to join the sentences together. For example, Eventually the doctors told my mom that I was suffering from bronchitis, along with the fact that I was in a coma(P1). Now the fourth and final way is to change the run-on sentence into a complex sentence by placing a subordinating conjunction before one of the clauses a run-on example is I did not play darts well I have terrible aim. The corrected way would be I do not play darts well because I have terrible aim.
The second error I decided to choose is the shift in verb tenses.
A verb tense shift is when a writer swaps continuously between the present tense to the past tense or vice versa. There are over many different ways to fix verb tense shift, but, there are only two general guidelines to follow. The first guideline states do not shift from one tense to another if the time frame for each action or if the state is the same. An example of this is the professor explains the video to the students who asked questions during the lecture. However, explains is in the present tense, therefore, it should read the professor explains the video to students who ask questions during the lecture. The second and final guideline states you can shift tenses to indicate a change in the time frame from one action or state to another. For example, workers are installing extra loud speakers because the music in tonight’s concert will need amplification. Are installing is a present progressive referring to an ongoing action in the current time frame. Therefore, will need is in future tense referring to the action that will happen after the current time
passes.