Therefore, she decided a trip to McDonald’s was necessary.

Watering and feeding new plants is necessary for growth, but too much water or fertilizer can kill them.Įrica felt as if she might faint from hunger. Here is the correct way to punctuate these sentences. The commas after “growth,” “hunger,” and “poet” create the comma splices. Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, essayist, playwright, and poet, moreover, she is a distinguished scholar.Īll of these examples create comma splices because there are complete sentences to the left and the right of the conjunctive adverbs however, therefore, and moreover. Watering and feeding new plants is necessary for growth, however, too much water or fertilizer can kill them.Įrica felt as if she might faint from hunger, therefore, she decided a trip to McDonald’s was necessary. Usually a semicolon is the best choice, but you may also use a period or a coordinating conjunction. If this is the case, you have a few options for fixing it. To avoid this problem, a basic rule to follow is this: If the two parts you are connecting can stand on their own as separate sentences, then you have probably misused the conjunctive adverb. This page addresses the problem that arises when conjunctive adverbs are used wrongly to connect two sentences. But remember that conjunctive adverbs can be used in any part of a sentence. Most of the time, problems occur when the writer uses a conjunctive adverb in the middle of a sentence when a coordinating conjunction is actually needed. These include the following: however, moreover, therefore, thus, consequently, furthermore, unfortunately. A conjunctive adverb is not so common in everyday speech, but occurs frequently in written prose. Many times it is because they confuse them with coordinating conjunctions.Ī coordinating conjunction is a familiar part of the English language and includes the following: and, but, or, nor, so, for, yet. But first, here is some explanation.Ī common problem writers face is the incorrect usage of conjunctive adverbs. The boldface “however” and the comma after “month” are the problems. January may be the coldest month, however, it is a time of great beauty. Readers find the error to be distracting because it disrupts their expectation about where sentences should end. The problem occurs when writers use these words to conjoin sentences. This page explains a type of error writers often make when using words like however, furthermore, therefore, thus, consequently, and moreover. See, for example, the following:ĬOMMON PROBLEMS WITH HOWEVER, THEREFORE, AND SIMILAR WORDS Fortunately, there's plenty of material on the world wide web that offer guidance. (2) Having a well developed sense of personal standards indicates substance/character/ownership.You have asked a common question. Reasoning: (1) Reaching a target audience indicates good communication skills. (2) Write in a way that you find interesting. Some general thoughts that may or may not be useful to you - I find these style guidelines to be the most important, in no particular order: (1) Write in a way that is appropriate for your intended audience. The way we experience life is subjective, so there is a natural tendency to say things like 'I had no idea that.' because we wish to share experiences. Mainly for this reason, I'm pretty indifferent about this particular style issue that is, it generally doesn't bother me, and I'm not led to believe that the writer is egocentric, unless there are other signs of this personality trait. Thus, in some languages, the repetition of first-person singular verbs can be less conspicuous because you don't end up with the same word beginning every sentence. Something I didn't see mentioned in the other answers is that the use of 'I' you described is partially English-specific, in that there are languages in which the word for 'I' can often be omitted due to inflected verb forms.

Starting a sentence with hopefully