Comma after To at the beginning of a sentence?

Question

I am just writing my master thesis and I am unsure whether to place a comma in sentences starting with "To". Here are some examples: - To be able to improve the performance[,] it is important to discover the performance issues first. - To create consistent plans[,] there are two basic directions of planning: top-down or bottom-up. - To acquire query plans[,] EXPLAIN PLAN statements have to be injected in the statements within the context of the application. Is the beginning an introductory phrase? I am German and therefore not familiar with English punctuation yet ...

Answer 1

The short answer is yes. Whenever you start a sentence in a way other than the classic subject-verb format you'll need a comma after the beginning phrase.

The long answer is: your wording is more complicated than it needs to be and somewhat redundant.

It would be better to simply say "To improve performance, first determine what the performance issues are." OR "To improve performance, begin by determining the performance issues."