{"id":41,"date":"2017-06-19T22:54:25","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T22:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/chapter\/comma-overuse\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T17:51:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T17:51:47","slug":"comma-overuse","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/chapter\/comma-overuse\/","title":{"raw":"Comma Overuse","rendered":"Comma Overuse"},"content":{"raw":"A sure way to irritate educated readers of your work is to give them an overabundance of commas. It is easy but dangerous to take the attitude that Sally once did in a Peanuts comic strip, asking Charlie Brown to correct her essay by showing her \u201cwhere to sprinkle in the little curvy marks.\u201d\r\n\r\nPerhaps the best way to troubleshoot your particular comma problems, especially if they are serious, is to identify and understand the patterns of your errors. We tend to make the same mistakes over and over again; in fact, many writers develop the unfortunate habit of automatically putting commas into slots such as these:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>between the subject and verb of a sentence<\/li>\r\n \t<li>after any number<\/li>\r\n \t<li>before any preposition<\/li>\r\n \t<li>before or after any conjunction<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\r\n<h3>practice<\/h3>\r\n<iframe title=\"Read the following sentences. How many of them have unnecessary commas? Type your corrected sentences.\" src=\"https:\/\/h5p.tcwms.org\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php?action=h5p_embed&amp;id=58\" width=\"959\" height=\"467\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><script src=\"https:\/\/h5p.tcwms.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/h5p\/h5p-php-library\/js\/h5p-resizer.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nJust as it is common for someone to have to look up the same tricky word dozens of times before committing its proper spelling to memory, you may need to reference comma rules multiple times before they feel natural to use. As you improve your comma usage, you will learn to recognize and re-evaluate your sentence patterns, and the rewards are numerous. There is no foolproof or easy way to understand all standard uses of commas, but a great place to start is reminding yourself of the comma\u2019s basic function as a separator and justifying the separation of elements. In the end, you simply must make a habit of reading, writing, and revising with comma correctness in mind.","rendered":"<p>A sure way to irritate educated readers of your work is to give them an overabundance of commas. It is easy but dangerous to take the attitude that Sally once did in a Peanuts comic strip, asking Charlie Brown to correct her essay by showing her \u201cwhere to sprinkle in the little curvy marks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the best way to troubleshoot your particular comma problems, especially if they are serious, is to identify and understand the patterns of your errors. We tend to make the same mistakes over and over again; in fact, many writers develop the unfortunate habit of automatically putting commas into slots such as these:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>between the subject and verb of a sentence<\/li>\n<li>after any number<\/li>\n<li>before any preposition<\/li>\n<li>before or after any conjunction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\n<h3>practice<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Read the following sentences. How many of them have unnecessary commas? Type your corrected sentences.\" src=\"https:\/\/h5p.tcwms.org\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php?action=h5p_embed&amp;id=58\" width=\"959\" height=\"467\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><script src=\"https:\/\/h5p.tcwms.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/h5p\/h5p-php-library\/js\/h5p-resizer.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Just as it is common for someone to have to look up the same tricky word dozens of times before committing its proper spelling to memory, you may need to reference comma rules multiple times before they feel natural to use. As you improve your comma usage, you will learn to recognize and re-evaluate your sentence patterns, and the rewards are numerous. There is no foolproof or easy way to understand all standard uses of commas, but a great place to start is reminding yourself of the comma\u2019s basic function as a separator and justifying the separation of elements. In the end, you simply must make a habit of reading, writing, and revising with comma correctness in mind.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-41\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Revision and Adaptation.. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Lumen Learning. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Style For Students Online.. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Joe Schall. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: The Pennsylvania State University. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.e-education.psu.edu\/styleforstudents\/\">https:\/\/www.e-education.psu.edu\/styleforstudents\/<\/a>. <strong>Project<\/strong>: Penn State&#039;s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences&#039; OER Initiative. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":163,"menu_order":12,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Revision and Adaptation.\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"Lumen Learning\",\"url\":\"\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-nc-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Style For Students Online.\",\"author\":\"Joe Schall\",\"organization\":\"The Pennsylvania State University\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.e-education.psu.edu\/styleforstudents\/\",\"project\":\"Penn State\\'s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences\\' OER Initiative\",\"license\":\"cc-by-nc-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"0e30324c-30dc-479d-9390-044c70c4f25b, 8713e9fa-3972-45cc-8a0f-a7fe6b0f7708, 4fe97c2a-f70c-4461-ac13-d11a17d81651","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-41","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":23,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1720,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/41\/revisions\/1720"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/23"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/41\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}