Stewart Pidd's Puctuation Essay

Treana Penn
Professor Sabir
English 201B
21 February 2009
Skating Through Pidd’s Bad Punctuations
In order to punctuate sentences correctly writers must understand certain rules and concepts. A clause is a group of words, containing a subject and a predicate, making a complete sentence. There are two types of clauses a subordinate clause and an independent clause. The difference between an independent clause and a subordinate clause, is that only an independent clause can stand alone. A phrase is a group of words not containing both a subject and a verb. Three comma sentence punctuation errors are comma splices, run-on sentences and fragment sentences. A fragment is not a phrase or a subordinate clause punctuated as a sentence. When a word group containing two or more independent clauses without a proper punctuation separating them, they are called a run-on sentence. A comma splice is a punctuation error that consist of two independent clauses punctuated with only a comma. Stewart Pidd deserves a “D” on his paper “Skating Rules” , because he does not properly punctuate his sentences.
Pidd makes a run-on sentence error. He writes, “ Skating rules and I rock.” The mistake occurs between the words “rules” and “and.” Pidd has failed to punctuate two independent clauses. “Skating rules” and “I rock”, joined together with a coordinating conjunction. He can ix this error by separating the two independent clauses. He can add a comma after the first independent clause or replace the coordinating conjunction with a semicolon or a period.
Pidd makes a sentence fragment error. He writes, “If I skate. I win.” Pidd punctuates the subordinate clause “If I skate. I win” with only a comma. He can fix this error by connecting the subordinate clause to the independent clause or by converting it into a subordinate clause. To connect the clause Pidd needs to omit the period after the subordinate clause or replace it with a comma. He can convert the subordinate clause into an independent clause by eliminating the subordinating conjunction “If.”
Pidd makes a fragment error. He writes, “His little step-by-step system for learning” as a sentence. He can fix this error by connecting the phrase to a nearby sentence with a comma. Pidd must make the phrase a subject and add a predicate to convert the phrase.
Pidd makes a fragment error. He writes, “When he canters out to his corvette”. Pidd punctuates the subordinating clause “when he canters out to his corvette” with only a period. He can fix this error by connecting the subordinate clause to the independent clause or by converting it into an independent clause. To connect the clause Pidd needs to omit the period after the subordinate clause or replace it with a comma. He can convert the subordinate clause into an independent clause by eliminating the subordinating conjunction “when.”
Pidd makes a run-on sentence error. He writes “I found this sick arrowhead and I will stick it, into one of his low-profile tires.” The mistake occurs between the words “arrow” and “I”. Pidd has failed to punctuate two independent clauses “I found this stick arrowhead” and “It will stick it into one of his low-profile tires.” He can fix this error by separating the two independent clauses to separate the two clauses he can by adding a comma after the first independent clauses.
Stewart Pidd deserves a “D” on his paper “Skating Rules” because he makes many sentence punctuation errors. Pidd’s failure to correctly punctuate sentences is the reason why he does not deserve a passing grade. Instead of making fun of Coach T’s lame English class, Pidd should follow Coach T’s little step-by-step system for learning. Throughout Pidd’s paper, he did not correctly punctuate his paper costing him a failing grade.