watch?v=-vck6uK-kow 
[00:00:00.11] NARRATOR: This is a series of videos I'm calling "Writing Felonies." We're going to look at some of the worst grammatical and mechanical writing crimes and show you how to fix them. The first one we're going to talk about is the comma splice. 
[00:00:16.70] Now to identify a comma splice, you have to look at your sentence and see if there are two independent clauses. This sentence here-- I see you ride a motorcycle without a helmet, you'll make a great organ donor. Well, we see that this part is an independent clause-- I see you ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Can that clause stand on its own as a complete sentence? Yes, so therefore, it is an independent clause. 
[00:00:42.41] Let's look at the second clause-- you'll make a great organ donor. That too, is an independent clause. It can stand on its own as a complete sentence. When two independent clauses are separated by a comma and nothing other than a comma, then you have a writing felony known as the comma splice. 
[00:01:03.81] So how are you going to fix your felony? If you have a comma splice, there's several things that you can do. I'm going to talk about four things you can do. 
[00:01:11.68] The first one is to simply just make it two sentences. Get rid of that comma. Replace it with a period, and capitalize the next letter. There, we have two independent complete sentences that stand on their own as sentences. That's the easiest way to fix it. 
[00:01:27.70] Second way is you can add a coordinating conjunction between your clauses. Now what's a coordinating conjunction? A coordinating conjunction is "for," "and," "nor," "but," "or," "yet," "so." Or you could use the mnemonic "FANBOYS." 
[00:01:49.05] I see you ride a motorcycle without a helmet. What FANBOYS should we add after that? I like adding "so." I see you ride a motorcycle without a helmet, comma, so you'll make a great organ donor. When you have two independent clauses separated by a coordinating conjunction, you keep the comma . You use a comma between those before the coordinating conjunction. 
[00:02:12.98] The next thing that you can do to fix your felony is to use a semicolon. If your two clauses are closely related, you can replace that comma with a semicolon to fix your felony. Now I do recommend that you use this sparingly and only when you have two very closely related clauses. 
[00:02:31.88] And then the final thing that you can do to fix your felony is to just rewrite that sentence. So here, I've changed the first clause, and I made it to subordinating clause using the word "when." So here it is. When I see you ride a motorcycle without a helmet, comma, I think you'll make a great organ donor. So those are four ways you can fix your felony. And hopefully, you will never have any more comma splices in your writing again.