A run-on sentence is not a very long sentence

A few years ago, when I was working as a writer for a private company, a coworker accused me of writing run-on sentences for YouTube video descriptions. When I reviewed the descriptions, I saw no run-on sentences at all. It turns out, he was referring to sentences he considered too long; they weren’t actually run-on sentences.

So what exactly is a run-on sentence?

A run-on sentence is a sentence that contains two or more independent clauses joined without appropriate punctuation or conjunction.

Here’s one example:

• The pepper is hot, we shouldn’t eat it.

Both clauses on either side of the comma are independent, and a comma is just too weak to separate them. Note that the example sentence isn’t particularly long; a run-on sentence has nothing to do with its length.

To fix a run-on sentence, we need to use stronger punctuation or a conjunction or make one of the clauses dependent, like these examples:

• The pepper is hot; we shouldn’t eat it. (semicolon)
• The pepper is hot—we shouldn’t eat it. (em dash)
• The pepper is hot. We shouldn’t eat it. (period)
• The pepper is hot, so we shouldn’t eat it. (conjunction)
• The pepper is hot, and we shouldn’t eat it. (conjunction)
• Because the pepper is hot, we shouldn’t eat it. (make one dependent)
• The pepper is hot, which means we shouldn’t eat it. (make one dependent)

Oh, and just to be clear, you can have a very long run-on sentence. :)

There you have it. Hopefully, you found this useful.