How am I supposed to use commas?

Answer 1

While commas are confusing, you may be relieved to know that there are rules which can be followed. Here’s a breakdown of the most common comma rules:

Between three or more items in a list: “I make homemade butter, cheese, and ice cream.”

(The comma after “cheese” is referred to as an Oxford comma and may be omitted. It is often debated by English teachers, so you may want to ask your teacher what he/she prefers.)

2. After an introductory, prepositional phrase: “In the morning, I take the metro to work.”

3. When a FANBOY (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So) joins two complete sentences, a comma must be placed before the FANBOY: “This morning my alarm didn’t go off, and I was late to work.”

(The comma comes before the word “and” which is acting to join the independent clauses “This morning my alarm didn’t go off,” and “I was late to work,” into one grammatically correct sentence.)

4. After a dependent clause at the beginning of a sentence: “When it rains outside, I wear my raincoat.”

“When it rains outside” is not a sentence by itself; it requires the following information: “I wear my raincoat." Therefore, the dependent clause “When it rains outside” must be followed by a comma. However, if I turned my sentence around and said, “I wear my raincoat when it rains outside,” I no longer need the comma.

5. To set aside additional/unnecessary information (appositives): “Yesterday, while my sister was at work, I watched a movie.”

The phrase “while my sister was at work,” is additional information which, if removed, wouldn’t change the meaning of the sentence. I could say, “Yesterday, I watched a movie.” Commas come before and after information which could be removed without changing the grammatical correctness of a sentence.

6. Following transition words/phrases: “However, my aunt doesn’t like pumpkin pie,” “Nevertheless, I received an A on my exam,” or “Finally, my brother stopped teasing me.”

7. Commas should be used before quotations, “Sally said, ‘How are you today?’”

8. Use a comma between two adjectives describing the same noun: “She is a pretty, nice girl.” Take note of the difference between this sentence which states that the girl is both pretty and nice, versus without the comma: “She is a pretty nice girl.”

I hope this helps!