I am taking courses in Criminal Justice. I flunked 3 courses in English. What is a comma splice? What is a dangler,fragment? Also how do you write a bussiness letter? Please help me so I can get my associates degree. Thank you ANITA GUNTER

Question

A comma splice occurs when you put a comma between two sentences instead of the needed period and capital letter.
EX: Jack ran up the hill, Jill came after him.
CORRECTED: Jack ran up the hill. Jill came after him. OR Jack ran up the hill, and Jill came after him.

A fragment is when you write a partial or incomplete sentence. It probably just needs to be attached to the sentence before or after it.
EX: While he was driving.
EX: Hiding in the closet.

CORRECTED: While he was driving, he turned his cell phone off.
CORRECTED: She was frightened by the thunder and lightning and was hiding in the closet.

A dangler is when a modifier (usually a phrase) is so far out of place, it doesn't make sense. All modifiers need to be a close to what they are modifying as possible.

EX: To finish the New York City Marathon, training on a daily basis must take place before the race. [Any modifier like the "to finish..." phrase needs to be modifying the subject of the sentence because the subject is the first word or so in the main clause. This one doesn't, however. It's impossible for "training" (the subject) to "finish" anything!]
CORRECTED: To finish the New York City Marathon, runners must train on a daily basis before the race. [Now the subject is "runners" and the "to finish..." phrase makes sense -- the runners are the ones who are working to finish the race.]

Here are two websites for you. The first one is for help with grammatical things like what you have asked. Click on the Word & Sentence Level section to find the different categories.

This second website will help you with all things connected with writing business letters -- format, content, tone, etc.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.html#bw
The first section is on resumes and letters for a job search, but scroll down a bit and you'll find General Business Writing Issues, as well as Letters, Memos and Reports.

This second website has a really good grammar section, too. Here's that URL:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/index.html
Scroll down to find the different terms you need help with.

=)

In this sentence above -- "All modifiers need to be a close to what they are modifying as possible" -- the wording should be "as close to what..." Sorry about the typo. =)

I need help with an essay that I have to do about disadvantages of television.