Quote Originally Posted by PSINXS
and there is nothing wrong with that in college level english. as long as the sentence doesnt require a comma its not needed. its not a run on because the subject stays the same. I've encountered much longer sentences in professional writing with no commas. looks odd but still grammatically correct
You are wrong, good sir. The sentence in question is this:

"She had watched him slowly shuffle around the kitchen opening all the drawers looking for just the right utensil"

In this sentence, the man does three things: He slowly shuffles, he opens the drawers, and he looks for the right utensil. Rephrased, Beth watched him slowly shuffle around the room. She watched him opening all the drawers. She watched him looking for the right utensil. The author combines these three sentences down to one, and lists the three things the man does. And as I'm sure you learned in elementary school, elements in a list must always be separated by commas.

Your comment about "if the comma is not required it's not needed" is valid, but in this case the commas are required. I think in my correction of the sentence I left out one of the two commas that are needed. Oops...I'll edit that when the database is done being PMS-y.

Also, a run-on sentence is not defined or qualified by the subject thereof. The sentence "I went to the store I got milk" is a run-on, despite the subject of both being the same. A run-on sentence is defined as two independent clauses which are joined together with nothing between them. A comma splice is two independent clauses which are joined together with a comma. This sentence is not a run-on without the commas; it is simply a sentence which is missing a couple of necessary commas.


[Edit: Regardless of whether or not the commas are needed, anyway, adding them adds to the feel of the story, IMHO. It places meticulous and intentional pauses in the flow, as though the murderer is meticulously and thoroughly performing the actions. Just because something isn't needed doesn't mean it won't help. But I still argue that it's needed ]