In the old days when tape and film were used to record music and motion pictures, sometimes a little editing would have to be done. This might occur to shorten a piece to make it fit a certain length or reconnect tape/film that broke. It was called splicing. When done poorly, the song or movie scene might appear to have skipped a beat or two.

When writing, authors also can appear to have left our a word or two when they sloppily connect two sentences together to form one. This usually occurs during a comma splice.

In a comma splice, two separate sentences are joined by using a comma rather than the correct punctuation mark (which is a semicolon) or using a conjunction (and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet) with the comma.

The following is an example of a comma splice:

We wanted to see the new movie, it was sold out, however.

It could be fixed in two ways. First, a semicolon might be used in place of the comma:

We wanted to see the new movie; it was sold out, however.

Secondly, a coordinating conjunction might be used after the comma:

We wanted to see the new movie, but it was sold out.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.