Revising Comma Splices and Fused Sentences

Read the following passage, and underline all comma splices and fused sentences (remember the exceptions). Then use the space below to rewrite the passage. You may choose to continue to link independent clauses, or you may choose to punctuate them as separate sentences. You may add coordinating conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, or transitional phrases as you wish. You may revise using dependent clauses or by converting two independent clauses into one. Make sure that your revised paragraph is grammatically correct and punctuated accurately. For each comma splice or fused sentence you rewrite, be ready to explain the reason for the particular revision you choose.

Perhaps the most striking fact about people is that they make things. When early October arrives, swallows migrate dogs get heavier coats snakes go into a kind of hibernation people knit themselves caps. People without caps and people with too many caps get together and invent the set of promises we call money. Having invented money, people pay other people to make parkas and slickers or they use money to buy kits and make these things themselves. Rain pelts down deer seek the densest cover they can find people build houses with roofs. When cats get cold, they curl into tight little balls. People invent insulation or they pay sheep ranchers to provide the wool that's made into warm shirts. When caribou get hungry, they have no choice but to seek a new range. When people get hungry, they don't move eventually they invent pizza. They figure out how to cure olives they figure out how to make thick bread crusts, they experiment with anchovies and pineapple they invent beer. Indeed, people are makers.

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