Question

A wife should show respect for her husband, the husband in turn should show respect for his wife. Is this a run on sentence or complete sentence?

Answer 1

This is a run-on sentence. The comma after "husband" is being employed in what we call a "comma splice." Other examples of comma splices:

-I really hate when the hitter check swings with two on base, what's up with that?
-She's a really cool girl, I wish I had the nerve to ask her out.

In both cases above, the comma should be replaced with a full-stop (period). Hope this helps!

Answer 2

yes --UnexpectedEOF is right.

Answer 3

This is a comma splice -- two or more (what ought to be individual) sentences conjoined with only a comma. You could put either a period or a semicolon there.

A run-on sentence is basically the same thing, but without the comma. The two (or more) parts are "run into" each other without any punctuation at all.

Answer 4

It might be worth noting here that Purdue's OWL classifies any combination of two independent clauses without proper punctuation as an incorrectly compounded sentence: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/598/02/

I suppose run-ons and comma-spliced clauses are both subsets of the same type of bad grammar, but whether a comma splice is a run-on could be argued either way. Good to know all the different types, though!

Answer 5

Well, as the site notes, run-ons (also called "fused sentences") and comma splices are both types of incorrectly punctuated compound sentences -- well, as you've said.

The only difference is whether there's a comma or nothing. The fix is the same either way: add a period to make two sentences, conjoin the two (if appropriate) with a semicolon, or conjoin the two (if appropriate) with a colon.

That's the easy, "punctuation-only" fix.

Depending upon how the sentences interrelate, you could instead add an "and" to the comma splice (or a ", and" to the run-on). And as always, you can revise.