AI Tutor
Imagine reading this line: The storm flooded the main road. The team arrived on time.
Both statements make sense alone, but your brain expects a bridge to explain how those two opposing facts fit together.

The Sentence Bridge

An independent clause is a complete thought containing a subject and a verb that can stand alone as a full sentence.
A conjunctive adverb is a transition word that connects two independent clauses while signaling the exact logical relationship between them.
Why can't we just use a comma here? Let's look at the mechanics of proper punctuation.

Punctuation Rules

Because conjunctive adverbs are adverbs rather than coordinating conjunctions (like and or but), they are not strong enough to join two clauses with just a comma.
You must place a semicolon before the conjunctive adverb and a comma immediately after it when connecting two clauses in one sentence.
Alternatively, you can separate the clauses into two sentences with a period, followed by the capitalized adverb and a comma.
A common mistake is treating words like however like the word but by writing clause, however, clause—which creates an illegal comma splice.