Is this considered a comma splice?

Question

In the book "Smoking", author John a famous writer and scientist, and author Kim a statistician and activist, urges smokers to quit smoking.

Is this a comma splice?

Answer 1

No, it is not a comma splice. A comma splice is when two independent clauses are joined by a comma, like

I don't know why he didn't want to go the movies, he wanted to go to the amusement park instead.

In your example sentence, there aren't two clauses that could stand alone by themselves. The "heart" of the sentence is "John and Kim urge smokers to quit smoking." Everything else is subordinate to that.

It's a terrible sentence for many reasons, but a comma splice is not one of its problems.

Answer 2

As already said, it's not an example of a comma splice. Nor, however, is it grammatically correct. A possible rephrasing is:

In the book Smoking, authors John (a famous writer and scientist) and Kim (a statistician and activist) urge smokers to quit.