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This video discussed the three main parts of a body paragraph: topic sentence, supporting information and therefore statement.

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Draft is a series about the art and craft of writing.

As I noted in my earlier article, rules and conventions about when to use and not to use commas are legion. But certain errors keep popping up. Here are a few of them.

Identification Crisis
If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. I'm referring to a student's writing a sentence like:
I went to see the movie, "Midnight in Paris" with my friend, Jessie.
Comma after "movie," comma after "friend" and, sometimes, comma after "Paris" as well. None are correct - unless "Midnight in Paris" is the only movie in the world and Jessie is the writer's only friend. Otherwise, the punctuation should be:
I went to see the movie "Midnight in Paris" with my friend Jessie.
If that seems wrong or weird or anything short of clearly right, bear with me a minute and take a look at another correct sentence:
I went to see Woody Allen's latest movie, "Midnight in Paris," with my oldest friend, Jessie.
You need a comma after "movie" because this and only this is Mr. Allen's newest movie in theaters, and before "Jessie" because she and only she is the writer's oldest friend.

The syntactical situation I'm talking about is identifier-name. The basic idea is that if the name (in the above example, "Jessie") is the only thing in the world described by the identifier ("my oldest friend"), use a comma before the name (and after it as well, unless you've come to the end of the sentence). If not, don't use any commas.

Grammatically, there are various ways of describing what's going on. One helpful set of terms is essential vs. nonessential. When the identifier makes sense in the sentence by itself, then the name is nonessential and you use a comma before it. Otherwise, no comma. That explains an exception to the only-thing-in-the-world rule: when the words "a," "an" or "some," or a number, come before the description or identification of a name, use a comma.
A Bronx plumber, Stanley Ianella, bought the winning lottery ticket.
When an identifier describes a unique person or thing and is preceded by "the" or a possessive, use a comma:
Baseball's home run leader, Barry Bonds, will be eligible for the Hall of Fame next year.
My son, John, is awesome. (If you have just one son.)

But withhold the comma if not unique:

My son John is awesome. (If you have more than one son.)
The artist David Hockney is a master of color. The celebrated British artist David Hockney is a master of color.
And even
The gay, bespectacled, celebrated British artist David Hockney is a master of color.
(Why are there commas after "gay" and "bespectacled" but not "celebrated"? Because "celebrated" and "British" are different sorts of adjectives. The sentence would not work if "and" were placed between them, or if their order were reversed.)

If nothing comes before the identification, don't use a comma:
The defense team was led by the attorney Harold Cullen.
No one seems to have a problem with the idea that if the identification comes after the name, it should always be surrounded by commas:
Steve Meyerson, a local merchant, gave the keynote address.
However, my students, at least, often wrongly omit a "the" or an "a" in sentences of this type:
Jill Meyers, sophomore, is president of the sorority.
To keep the commas, it needs to be:
Jill Meyers, a sophomore, is president of the sorority.
Peter Arkle

The Case of the Missing Comma
A related issue is the epidemic of missing commas after parenthetical phrases or appositives - that is, self-enclosed material that's within a sentence, but not essential to its meaning. The following sentences all lack a necessary comma. Can you spot where?
My father, who gave new meaning to the expression "hard working" never took a vacation. He was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1964. Philip Roth, author of "Portnoy's Complaint" and many other books is a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize.
If you said "working," "Iowa" and "books," give yourself full marks. I'm not sure why this particular mistake is so tempting. It may sometimes be because these phrases are so long that by the time we get to the end of them, we've forgotten about the first comma. In any case, a strategy to prevent it is to remember the acronym I.C.E. Whenever you find yourself using a comma before an Identification, Characterization or Explanation, remember that there has to be a comma after the I.C.E. as well.

Splice Girls, and Boys
"Comma splice" is a term used for the linking of two independent clauses - that is, grammatical units that contain a subject and a verb and could stand alone as sentences - with a comma. When I started teaching at the University of Delaware some years ago, I was positively gobsmacked by the multitude of comma splices that confronted me. They have not abated.

Here's an example:

He used to be a moderate, now he's a card-carrying Tea Partier.

It's easy to fix in any number of ways:
He used to be a moderate. Now he's a card-carrying Tea Partier. He used to be a moderate; now he's a card-carrying Tea Partier. He used to be a moderate, but now he's a card-carrying Tea Partier. He used to be a moderate - now he's a card-carrying Tea Partier.
How to choose among them? By reading aloud - always the best single piece of writing advice - and choosing the version that best suits the context, your style and your ear. I would go with the semicolon. How about you?

Two particular situations seem to bring out a lot of comma splices. The first is in quotations:
"The way they've been playing, the team will be lucky to survive the first round," the coach said, "I'm just hoping someone gets a hot hand."
The comma after "said" has to be replaced with a period.

The other issue is the word "however," which more and more people seem to want to use as a conjunction, comparable to "but" or "yet." So they will write something like:
The weather is great today, however it's supposed to rain tomorrow.
That may be acceptable someday. Today, however, it's a comma splice. Correct punctuation could be:
The weather is great today, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow.
Or
The weather is great today. However, it's supposed to rain tomorrow.
Comma splices can be O.K. when you're dealing with short clauses where even a semicolon would slow things down too much:
I talked to John, John talked to Lisa.
Samuel Beckett was the poet laureate of the comma splice. He closed his novel "The Unnamable" with a long sentence that ends:

... perhaps it's done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.

Which goes to show, I suppose, that rules are made to be broken.
Ben Yagoda addressed some of the questions in the comments, as well as a few other points about the comma, in a follow-up post. Correction: In an earlier version of this article, the example involving "Midnight in Paris" mistakenly said a comma was needed after the name "Jessie," rather than before it.
Ben Yagoda is a professor of English at the University of Delaware and the author of, among other books, "About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made" and "The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing." He blogs for the Chronicle of Higher Education and his own blog, Not One-Off Britishisms. His forthcoming book is "How to Not Write Bad."

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Draft is a series about the art and craft of writing. As I noted in my earlier article, rules and conventions about when to use and not to use commas are legion. But certain errors keep popping up. Here are a few of them.

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 17 Rules for Using Commas Without Looking Like a Fool

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 17 Rules for Using Commas Without Looking Like a Fool

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2. Use a comma after a dependent clause that starts a sentence.

A dependent clause is a grammatical unit that contains both subject and verb but cannot stand on its own, like "When I went running ..."

Commas always follow these clauses at the start of a sentence. If a dependent clause ends the sentence, however, it no longer requires a comma. Only use a comma to separate a dependent clause at the end of a sentence for added emphasis, usually when negation occurs.

3. Use commas to offset appositives from the rest of the sentence.

Appositives act as synonyms for a juxtaposed word or phrase. In the above example - "While running, I saw a mallard, a kind of duck" - "A kind of duck" is the appositive, which gives more information about "a mallard."

If the appositive occurs in the middle of the sentence, both sides of the phrase need a comma. As in: "A mallard, a kind of duck, attacked me."

Don't let the length of an appositive scare you. As long as the phrase somehow gives more information about its predecessor, you usually need a comma.
"A mallard, the kind of duck I saw when I went running, attacked me."
There's one exception to this rule. Don't offset a phrase that gives necessary information to the sentence. Usually, commas surround a non-essential clause or phrase. For example, "The duck that attacked me scared my friend" doesn't require any commas. Even though the phrase "that attacked me" describes "the duck," it provides essential information to the sentence. Otherwise, no one would know why the duck scared your friend. Clauses that begin with "that" are usually essential to the sentence and do not require commas.

4. Use commas to separate items in a series.

That last comma, known as the serial comma, Oxford comma, or Harvard comma, causes serious controversy. Although many consider it unnecessary, others (including Business Insider) insist on its use to reduce ambiguity.

There's an Internet meme that demonstrates its necessity perfectly. The sentence, "We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin," means the speaker sent three separate invitations: one to some strippers, one to JFK, and one to Stalin. The version without the Oxford comma, however, takes on an entirely different meaning, potentially suggesting that only one invitation was sent - to two strippers named JFK and Stalin. Witness: "We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin."
Read more: 12 everyday phrases that you're probably saying incorrectly

5. Use a comma after introductory adverbs.

Another example: "Finally, I went running."

Many adverbs end in "ly" and answer the question "how?" How did someone do something? How did something happen? Adverbs that don't end in "ly," such as "when" or "while," usually introduce a dependent clause, which rule number two in this post already covered.

Also insert a comma when "however" starts a sentence, too. Phrases like "on the other hand" and "furthermore" also fall into this category.

Starting a sentence with "however," however, is discouraged by many careful writers. A better method would be to use "however" within a sentence after the phrase you want to negate, as in the previous sentence.

6. Use a comma when attributing quotes.

The rule for where the comma goes, however, depends on where attribution comes.

If attribution comes before the quote, place the comma outside the quotations marks:
The runner said, "I saw a duck."
If attribution comes after the quote, put the comma inside the quotation marks:
"I saw a duck," said the runner.

7. Use a comma to separate each element in an address. Also use a comma after a city-state combination within a sentence.

Another example: "Cleveland, Ohio, is a great city."

9. Use a comma when the first word of the sentence is a freestanding "yes" or "no."

Another example: "Yes, I saw a duck when I went running."

10. Use a comma when directly addressing someone or something in a sentence.

Another clever meme shows the problem with incorrect placement of this comma. "Stop clubbing baby seals" reads like an order to desist harming infant mammals of the seal variety. The version with a comma, however, instructs them to stop attending hip dance clubs. "Stop clubbing, baby seals." (Or rather, to stay on theme: "Stop clubbing, baby ducks.")

11. Use a comma between two adjectives that modify the same noun.

Only coordinate adjectives require a comma between them. Two adjectives are coordinate if you can answer yes to both of these questions: 1. Does the sentence still make sense if you reverse the order of the words? 2. Does the sentence still make sense if you insert "and" between the words?

Since "I saw the mean, big duck " and "I saw the big and mean duck" both sound fine, you need the comma.

Sentences with non-coordinate adjectives, however, don't require a comma. For example, "I lay under the powerful summer sun." "Powerful" describes "summer sun" as a whole phrase. This often occurs with adjunct nouns, a phrase where a noun acts as an adjective describing another noun - like "chicken soup" or "dance club."

12. Use a comma to offset negation in a sentence.

In this case, you still need the comma if the negation occurs at the end of the sentence:
"I saw a baby seal, not a duck."
Also use commas when any distinct shift occurs in the sentence or thought process:
"The cloud looked like an animal, perhaps a baby seal." Read more: 9 ways to become a better speller, according to an expert

13. Use commas before every sequence of three numbers when writing a number larger than 999. (Two exceptions are writing years and house numbers.)

14. Use commas to demarcate an incomplete quote, or to create dramatic effect.

If you're trying to indicate a natural pause or inject your dialogue with some dramatic effect, commas can be your friend. Put whatever comes first in quotes, end that quote with a comma, and then end the attribution with a comma. This creates the grammatical equivalent of someone pausing while speaking - the commas make you stop at each clause, but let you know that the sentence is still flowing.

"But wait," the Business Insider reporter wrote, "there's more ways to use commas."

15. Use commas for important clarification.

In the above sentence, a comma tells you that Scrooge and the extended McDuck clan are to jump in a pot of money. Without the comma, it would seem that multiple Scrooges were raking in the coins.

16. Beware of putting a comma before "but" every single time. It should only be used when connecting two independent clauses (despite what your middle school teacher told you).

As you may recall from above, an independent clause has a subject and a verb and can stand on its own as a sentence. Often, a coordinating conjunction will connect two independent clauses - like the word "but."

But - and it's a big but - your middle school teacher may have told you to always throw a comma before "but." Don't do that! You should only put a comma before "but" when connecting two independent clauses.

For example, this usage of "but" does not take a comma:
"To quack but to have no one hear is a sad thing for a duck."

17. Beware of the comma splice

As fun as it may be to say, the comma "splice" should be avoided. A comma splice incorrectly joins two independent clauses, like:
"I went running, I saw a duck."
That sentence contains a comma splice, and therefore it is incorrect. The two independent clauses "I went running" and "I saw a duck" could instead be separated by a period.
Read more: 9 words and phrases people think are wrong, but are actually correct

More: English Language Grammar Writing Features

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17 rules for using commas correctly without looking like a fool

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2. Use a comma after a dependent clause that starts a sentence. A dependent clause is a grammatical unit that contains both subject and verb but cannot stand on its own, like "When I went running ..." Commas always follow these clauses at the start of a sentence.

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General Format - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University

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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

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MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page.

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MLA Formatting and Style Guide: Creating a Works Cited list using the eighth edition

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MLA Formatting and Style Guide: Creating a Works Cited list using the eighth edition

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MLA Formatting and Style Guide - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University

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MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

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MLA Sample Works Cited Page - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University

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