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Hi there! I am Studyfin, your learning buddy. Today, we will explore how to build and edit complete sentences!
Every complete sentence needs two main parts to make sense. It needs a subject, which is who or what the sentence is about. It also needs a predicate, which tells what the subject does or is.
If a sentence is missing a subject or a predicate, it is called a sentence fragment. We can fix a fragment by adding the missing part to make a complete thought.
Sometimes, we accidentally squish two complete sentences together without the right punctuation. This is called a run-on sentence. We can fix it by adding a period or a comma with a joining word like 'and' or 'but'.
Let's edit this draft sentence to make it correct: 'My cat slept all day he is very lazy.' How do we analyze and fix this run-on sentence step-by-step?
- First, look for the first complete thought. 'My cat slept all day' has a subject (My cat) and a predicate (slept all day). This is a complete sentence.
- Next, look for the second complete thought. 'he is very lazy' also has a subject (he) and a predicate (is very lazy). This is another complete sentence.
- Identify the error. The two complete thoughts are pushed together with no punctuation between them. This is a run-on sentence.
- Choose a way to fix the error. We can separate them into two clean sentences using a period and a capital letter.
- Write the final, edited draft: 'My cat slept all day. He is very lazy.'
