Need a refresher on how to use a comma? You’re not alone …
A comma is the brave little toaster of the punctuation family. Stalwart, unassuming, and essential. It’s a tiny, useful piece of punctuation that two-thirds of the internet has apparently forgotten how to use.
When did web writers decide the comma was just an annoying interruption? That they could just leave most of them out, because no one cares about that stuff now? As if they’re not important when writing a good blog post?
And then — possibly regretting their previous poor choices — sprinkle a few commas randomly on top, perhaps to make it look more … punctuate-y.
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How to use a comma in a sentence
Please, please my dear fellow writers, knock it off …
When you leave out the commas, particularly if you then throw a couple of random ones in there, your content ideas run the risk of looking uninformed, silly, or just plain confusing. Plus, you fail to communicate the types of tone in writing that help you build loyal audiences.
“Do you love dogs the planet your flag and country babies justice equality freedom?”
That’s a quote from a classic post of mine, with the commas in a list ripped away.
That one’s a little extreme, since it’s a list of nouns. Notice, though, how you’re not sure which words belong together. Is it “country babies?” “Equality freedom?”
Quit trashing your writing voice with this rookie mistake
I see only slightly less extreme versions of this in marketing stories every day.
Sentences I need to re-read to figure out which words go together. Sentences that stop me in the middle, like that horrible person who brakes in the middle of the street to read a text.
And sentences that just seem to be running out of breath, because the writer hasn’t learned how to use a comma.
Use commas for clarity
I love what Ursula Le Guin had to say about punctuation in her book on narrative, Steering the Craft:
“… punctuation tells the reader ‘how to hear’ our writing. That’s what it’s for. Commas and periods bring out the grammatical structure of a sentence; they make it clear to the understanding, and the emotions, by showing what it sounds like — where the breaks come, where to pause.”
Take the last bit of that and strip away the punctuation. Notice how hard it gets to understand:
“they make it clear to the understanding and the emotions by showing what it sounds like where the breaks come where to pause”
Getting your punctuation in order isn’t about making English teachers happy. (Although that, also, is a worthy goal.)
It’s about making your writing clearer, more pleasing, and easier to read. If you want to learn how to become a freelance writer, proper comma usage is non-negotiable.
Do commas matter in “conversational” copy?
Some writers feel that the rules of punctuation will make their content stuffy. Better to just “write like I talk,” and let the writing voice make a connection.
I think learning to write like you talk is a magnificent goal. It’s not always easy to learn.
Getting a really good grasp on punctuation allows you to write more like you talk, by giving the reader a simple way to understand the structure of each sentence.
If you’re writing content for any kind of purpose — for clients, for relationship building to support your business, or even to promote a hobby or other personal writing goal — your words have to find the right place in your audience’s ears.
Learning how to use a comma helps that happen naturally and painlessly.
A special note about commas for professional writers
Professional writers have an additional obligation.
If you’re the designated scribe for someone else, just as it’s your responsibility to learn how to overcome writer’s block, it’s also your responsibility to make that person or company look amazing.
When professional writers don’t know how to use commas and other punctuation marks, they make their clients or their organizations look ill-educated and careless. And that’s not okay.
How to polish your comma skills
You were probably a lot less geeky than I was when you were in 9th grade. Nearly everyone was.
So you may not have been paying rapt attention when your teacher talked about comma usage, or what semicolons are for, or how to form the trickier possessive plurals.
We’re lucky to live in the 21st century, with a bunch of useful resources to help us fill in those gaps.
The best option is probably to hire a good proofreader (or possibly even an off-duty English teacher) to look over your work and find the errors. If this person is really wonderful, they can explain the errors to you, so you’re less likely to make them again.
That’s not workable for everyone, and — this will strike some as heresy — I have no problem with writers using a tool like Grammarly to help find missing commas (and get rid of the ones that are there for no reason).
Early automated usage and grammar correctors were pretty dumb. They tended to introduce a lot of errors and mark perfectly acceptable usage as incorrect.
The new tools, like Grammarly, are smarter. But they’re still not perfect, and that brings us to the next point …
Develop a solid understanding of comma rules
If Grammarly or your proofreader flags a missing comma and you don’t understand why, take a minute or two and figure it out.
You can check websites like Grammar Girl, or books like The Well-Tempered Sentence or The Elements of Style Illustrated. (A friend turned me on to the illustrated version of that classic, and it’s a charmer.)
You can hire a tutor for an hour or two. Or get on Facebook and find out which of your friends were English majors.
I wouldn’t get too hung up on a specific style when you’re learning how to use a comma. It doesn’t matter much whether you prefer AP Style or Chicago, or how you feel about the serial comma. Just be consistent and deliberate with your choices.
And for the love of your country your faith mom apple pie democracy kittens and everything else that is decent and right and good please get some commas into your blog posts.
Thank you.
Reader Comments (26)
I love grammar tools, even the hopelessly flawed Microsoft Word, because I know enough about punctuation to know when to agree and when to disagree. The computer simply asks me the question.
And for those people who insist on putting a comma between the subject and the verb that immediately follows it, are you trying to talk like William Shatner?
When I lived in DC, I was friends with a political speech writer. I listened to him prompt the politician: “When you see a comma – PAUSE. Breathe. Let a second to pass, it will give impact and clarify what you are saying by allowing the listeners to absorb the words.” As the politician stepped onto the stage, my friend once more said: Pause!! It was a very impressive speech. I believe in commas. They are powerful when used properly. As an editor, I cringe when I see them tossed about by the writer in a willy-nilly style… or ignored completely. I read a work, in it, one paragraph, 2/3 of a full page, single-spaced with only a capital letter at the start and a period at the end. No other punctuation! The author had no idea what a comma was. There were NONE in his work… well, that is until I finished editing. LOL.
They really are powerful little critters.
Bless the person(s) who invented Grammarly! I not only feel more confident using it, I’ve learned a LOT. As you suggested, rather than just blindly making corrections I look up things I don’t understand and it’s gratifying to see that I’m making fewer mistakes than when I started using it. Thanks for the important reminder.
It’s amazing how quickly you can progress when you use a tool like that as a prompt to check something, rather than just letting it try to write for you. 🙂 That’s how you get better!
Thanks for your note!
Ah, the comma. A comma tells you how to read. Commas also tell you when to stop, to breath, and to move forward. What a blessing. Thank goodness I err on the side of using comments, versus writing runaway sentences.
Good article. Without proper use of commas and other punctuation, you sound like Archy the cockroach (and if that name doesn’t ring any bells, Google it).
Archy and Mehitabel.
Amen, Sonia! The misuse and disuse of the comma is one of my biggest grammar pet peeves. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who appreciates this seemingly lowly but incredibly important punctuation mark!
I blog in English, which is not my first language. It’s harder but more fun for me. I use Grammarly to check my grammar. In my mother tongue, the comma usage is the same as in English so I also dislike the misuse and disuse of it.
Oh my God….commas!! What about all the terrible, outrageous spelling I’m trying to make sense of!!! I don’t get it!
I’m with you. Also, gratuitous exclamation marks! 🙂
For a minute, I thought I was doing something wrong writing my posts.
I have a good suggestion for your book club. “Humboldt’s Gift,” A 1976 Nobel-Prize-winning novel by Saul Bellow, who incidentally does away with commas.
Although a novel narrative is one thing, and mandatory punctuation in blog writing, another.
Writing like you talk is even more difficult, if English is not your first language. There are times I think in my native language when writing, and if I wrote things in English along my thought, it makes little sense without punctuation. The way we communicate on social media play a big role in sending punctuation marks, especially the comma, into extinction. It’s why some comments sound ridiculous. The comma is very important. I appreciated it a lot, as a theatre student.
Once you realize that commas only serve one of two purposes—they either separate (used one at a time), or they enclose (used in pairs to set items or information apart), the question of whether or not to use commas becomes pretty simple.
I find I want them to be a dramatic effect as well. Apparently, not accurate. 😉
My kingdom for a comma!
Commas save lives..
for example, compare: Let’s eat, grandma! Let’s eat grandma! Commas save lives!
Hi Sonia, that’s a really useful article. However, my problem is different. I use too many commas in my write-ups because I am always concerned that my writings don’t have enough “pauses.” I also had a couple of debates with the editors on the clients’ side about using the “Oxford” comma. Yes, I use them regularly and I don’t see any harm in using them. Still, I feel I need to get back to my long-forgotten Warriner’s English Grammar book to refresh my punctuations.
The best way to explain commas and other punctuation is from “Notes on Punctuation” by Lewis Thomas. His essay is excellent and fun to read.
Here’s the section on commas: “The commas are the most useful and usable of all the stops. It is highly important to put them in place as you go along. If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows in all sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn’t realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashed up squirming in commas. Better to use them sparingly, and with affection, precisely when the need for each one arises, nicely, by itself.
I recently tried Grammarly for the first time and enjoyed it so much that I upgraded to the premium version. I’ve noticed that commas are my biggest weakness, according to Grammarly. Now I do tend to lean on the service to help correct me. But as a writer, I’m also trying to fix myself and get better at it where Grammarly doesn’t have to do all the work. Great post!
I try to frame it as Grammarly is training me…I try to pay attention to the “why” of its corrections. Maybe I will be a great writer one day. Great speller, probably not. But maybe a comma master.
Using Grammarly showed me I am not great at commas, but after using it for the last year or so, I find it corrects me less often. So I suppose I am getting better, and hopefully more clear.
It kills me with all these young people using no capitalization and no punctuation. These texts from my kids make no sense without commas. I hope they will later embrace them, so I know wtf they are actually talking about.
Yes, I use commas in texts. And yes, that means I am old. At least I’m clear.
The trouble a missing comma can get you into.
No more Tequila!
No, more Tequila!
Very well put, the ‘comma’ makes a huge difference. A simple basic element, which can be easily overlooked or missed.
Thanks for sharing.
But where do you come down on the Great Oxford Comma Debate? #TeamOxfordComma
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