Commas: pause for a piece of punctuation
Everyday Material
Margaret, will you please help Casey?
I was born March 26, 1996.
Direct Address
Dates
Addresses
Openings and closing of
Numbers
Separate Items in a Series
We live at 322 West Sherwood, Franklin, Indiana.
Let's eat, Mommy
A "series" can be anything that is in a list
Dear Santa,
Yours truly,
Nouns: Alexis shopped for shoes, socks, sweaters, and skirts.
Verbs: They ran, danced, sang, jumped, and laughed.
Adjectives: The cat was fat, furry, angry, and hissing.
Adverbs: The baseball player ran very, very quickly.
Prepositional phrases: The race course ran over the hill, around the rocks, down the street, and through the town.
We will need 2,383 beans for the contest.
They say there are 2,587,346 broken hearts on Broadway.
Let's eat Mommy!
Lists can be long or short.
The longer and more complex the list, the more important the final comma is:
Do you like Steve, George or Harry? (no comma is OK)
Do you want to go swimming with Steve, sky diving with George, or horseback riding with Harry? (comma before the OR is necessary)
Finally
Understand and apply each rule every time--if there is no rule, no comma is needed.
With Direct Quotations
He said, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"
After the introduction of a quotation:
After the quotation, before the citation:
"I can't believe it's not butter," she said.
To set off introductory material
Clauses, phrases or single words that introduce the main subject/verb, are "set off" with a comma
Before he went to the park, he called his mom.
After chasing the kids all day, Susan was tired.
Since then, there have been many people to have tried.
Sometimes the clause or phrase comes at the end of the sentence.
I love to knit and crochet, especially after a long day at work.
Between two complete thoughts
Two sentences--one subject, one verb, one thought and a SECOND subject, verb and new thought.
Using the FAN BOYS
For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So
Around words that interrupt the flow of the thought
The mayor walked up to the podium and delivered the speech.
The mayor walked up to the podium, and she delivered the speech.
Parts of the sentence that are not necessary and only add detail