Fusion Confusion

Some instructors called it a fused sentence; others call it a run-on sentence. We'd be splitting hairs to say there's a difference. The common problem is not knowing when to stop. I like this food analogy. If document is a meal and a paragraph is a course in the meal, then a sentence is one forkful of food. Because readers can't really digest more than one idea at a time, you need to give them sentences that stand alone. Let them savor your words. Don't stuff them with more than they can chew. (At this point yuo might want to look at the explanation about metaphors; I think I've just beaten this one to death.)

Run-on and fused sentences can be of the obvious type or they can be grammatically correct, with all of the semi-colons and commas in the right place, but simply too long. Here's an example of the obvious type.

He tried his best he just wasn't any good at it.

Notice that, at first, it's not clear where you should pause. But the the sentence to make sense, you must pause somewhere and the obvious place is between "best" and "he." Though most readers might figure that out, that's not what you want. You want your writing to flow so that the reader never has to stop and figure anything out.

Here's an exapmple of the second type of run-on/fused sentence.

The house was old, just like Mrs. Martin, but unlike her, it had held up well over the years, especially as long as Mr. Martin was around to spruce it up every now and then, but now that he had died and their son had continued to come by and fix it up, she had let herself decay to the point where no amount of sprucing would do her any good because she had gone beyond the point of repair, which was one of the first things anyone in the neighborhood would say about her if her name came up, mumbling something like 'Isn't it a shame the way sher has let herself go,' or 'It's such a pity to see what has become of her.'

I'd say it suffers from too much entree and not enough dessert.