Question

read the following excerpt from a student essay. how can the writer best improve his or her grammar and mechanics? its amazing how much money people spend on things they dont need. i wanted to break free from the cycle of consumption, as an experiment, i avoided buying anything for an entire month. it was difficult at first, but i adjusted. i was used to riding the subway and eating out every day, however, i rode my bike to school and brought my lunch from home instead. by the end of the month, i had saved nearly four hundred dollars! by fixing subject-verb agreement errors by avoiding comma splices by correcting misplaced modifiers

Explanation:

The sentence “I wanted to break free from the cycle of consumption, as an experiment, I avoided buying anything for an entire month” has a comma splice. A comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined only by a comma. Here, “I wanted to break free from the cycle of consumption” and “I avoided buying anything for an entire month” are two independent clauses. They can be fixed by using a period (making two separate sentences), a semicolon, or by adding a conjunction.

Answer:

by avoiding comma splices