Ginger proofreads sentences with faulty punctuation

We fed Ginger some sentences with common punctuation mistakes: chiefly, run-on or fused sentences (ROS), comma splice cases (CS), and sentence fragments (SF).

Ginger only flagged two issues.

First, it recognized Sentence 8 as a run-on or fused sentence, yet its suggested correction would result in a comma splice:

The second “mistake” is not even a real mistake. The indefinite article beginning the phrase “a sophisticated, prestigious, and elite group of readers” includes all three adjectives that come before the nominal group. There is no need to add another article, and adding it would disrupt the sentence balance:

Text used in the experiment: the sentences were devised to test student knowledge on common syntax and punctuation mistakes by the convenor of an undergraduate writing course at Auckland University. To use these sentences for a classroom activity, visit Exercises. To download the sentences as a .docx file, click here.