>> Welcome to the Sacramento City College Writing Center
Workshop on comma rules.
Before we start going over the rules for using commas
that are most commonly used in academic writing,
we're going to go through a couple of definitions
to help make sure that we all understand what we're
talking about.
An independent clause is a group of words
that contains both a subject and a verb
and that expresses a complete thought.
Another way of thinking independent clauses is they are
complete sentences.
A dependent clause is also a group of words
that has both the subject and a verb
but a dependent clause does not express a complete thought.
Dependent clauses are often marked with dependent words
like although, while, when, or if.
F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. are conjunctions
that are often called coordinating conjunctions.
They connect ideas to one another and they are for, and,
nor, but, or, yet, so.
These words all have different meanings
and they show the relationship between the things
that are being connected.
So to join clauses, you have a few different patterns
that we can work with.
If you have two independent clauses,
you can join them together with a comma and a FANBOY.
You can also join them if they are very closely related
to one another with a semi-colon.
In that case, you wouldn't use any other kind
of conjunction with it.
So you wouldn't have to use a FANBOY
or you can always just have them as two separate sentences.
So here we have two independent clauses.
The first is Michael went to the store.
And the second is David stayed home.
So we can put a comma and a conjunction.
So we can say Michael went to the store comma
but David stayed home.
And we're using but to show that there's a difference
between what happened in the first sentence
and what happened in the second.
We can just use a semi-colon between the two
or we can use a period and make sure that the first word
of the second sentence is capitalized.
Another combination that we might have is an independent
clause followed by a dependent clause.
In this case, you don't need any special punctuation.
Just put the dependent clause right
after the independent clause.
On the other hand, if you have a dependent clause first
and then an independent clause, you're going
to put a comma right after the dependent clause before you
start the independent clause.
So when we have the independent clause,
Michael forgot to get cereal.
And we know that's independent
because it can stand all by itself.
And we have the dependent clause,
when he went to the store.
We can do one of two things.
We can say Michael forgot to get cereal
when he went to the store.
And then we don't need any punctuation except
for the period at the end.
Or we can say when he went
to the store comma Michael forgot to get cereal.
And that comma lets us know
that that first little bit tells us something
about the second part but it's not a complete idea on its own.
Commas are also used when listing.
So when you have more than two items, you're going
to put a comma between each of those items.
You don't have to put a comma before the final item
in your list unless you need it to make it more clear.
But once you choose, you have to do it the same way.
So if you do put a comma before the last item,
every time you use more than three items or more
than two items, you're going to have to put a comma before that.
If you don't, you can't ever do it.
There is a special case if you have commas inside of the list
where you have, for example, a city and state or a list
that groups many things by type.
You're going to list semi-colons
to separate those groups of ideas.
So let's show some examples of that.
Here we have bananas, apples, and kiwis for breakfast.
You can put a comma after apples or not.
It's your choice.
It doesn't really clarify anything
but it doesn't hurt anything either.
Here we don't have to have a comma before
or in the car but we can.
It doesn't matter either way.
It's still just as clear.
On the other hand, when we ask someone's sisters, Danielle
and Mary, if we don't have the comma before and Mary,
it can make some things confusing for readers
because it leaves us
with a question are her sisters named Danielle and Mary
or is she asking more than one different person?
Is she asking Danielle, Mary,
and the two women who are her sisters?
So in this case, we definitely need that comma
to make it more clear that we're talking
about more than two people.
We're talking about at least four.
When we're listing things with the commas and semi-colons,
it's going to look like this.
A lot of times you're going to do this
when you have cities and states.
If we just used commas, this sentence would say
on our road trip comma we went
to San Francisco comma California comma Seattle comma
Washington comma and Vancouver comma B.C.
which might make someone think that we went
to San Francisco then to California, then to Seattle then
to Washington then to Vancouver, then to British Columbia
which would be incorrect.
So by putting the commas and the semi-colons it helps make it a
little more clear for our readers.
Likewise, we can do the same thing
when we're grouping items in a list.
So here we've listed dairy products
and then dry products and yummy stuff.
They all go into cookies.
Adjectives are words that describe nouns.
So when you list two or more adjectives
that could be reversed which are sometimes called coordinate
adjectives or coordinating adjectives.
We want to put a comma between them but you don't need
to put a comma between the adjective and the noun.
On the other hand, if the adjectives can't be reversed.
So these are called cumulative adjectives.
You don't put a comma between them.
If you aren't sure whether an adjective set is cumulative
or coordinating, see if you can join them with an and.
If you can't join them, they're cumulative.
So you should not put a comma between them.
So the scary, yellow bug tried to attack me.
The bug is scary and yellow.
So that's a coordinate adjective.
We can switch them around.
We could say the yellow scary bug.
We're going to put a comma there.
On the other hand, we can't it's two and purple eyes.
So it has to just be two purple eyes.
No comma. It had sharp and glistening teeth.
We're not going to put the and in.
We're just going to put a comma.
Here's a little more confusing because we could say the giant
and toxic green tongue but if toxic green is a color
which it is in this case, those words need to stay together.
They can't be switched around.
So it has to be giant toxic green tongue was so gross.
No commas.
Non-essential information is anything that you don't need
in a sentence in order to make it be complete or make sense.
Sometimes non-essential information is necessary
for the entire paragraph or essay to make sense
but what we're concerned about is grammatics
of one sentence not about the whole paragraph.
Okay?
Often when you're using non-essential information,
it is going to explain or define something you've written.
Or it helps to transition between ideas.
You can also hear it called non-restrictive elements or --
and then essential information is a restrictive element.
I wouldn't worry too much about that language use
but some teachers will use that language.
So it's good to know.
And non-essential information can be found anywhere
in the sentence.
So it's not just in the middle.
It might be at the beginning.
It might be in the middle.
It might be at the end.
So let's look at some examples of this.
So some essential information in this sentence.
The people who had prepaid for their meal got served meal.
Now if we tried taking out who had prepaid for their meal.
My sentence would become the people got served first.
And that doesn't really tell us anything, does it?
We need to have that information who had prepaid for their meal
in order to know what people got served first.
So that's essential information.
On the other hand, in this sentence, we don't need to know
that the girls who were 15
and 16 years old were the ones who drank smoothies.
We just need to know the girls drank smoothies.
That little bit of extra information that they were 15
and 16 years old, that's useful
but it doesn't change the sentence.
We use non-essential information to rename a noun.
My best friend has the ugliest cat in the world.
That can stand by itself.
No problem.
I am going to use some non-essential information.
Sally, that's her actual name,
to tell you who my best friend is.
Now I don't need that information in the sentence
but when I'm going to talk about her later I don't want to have
to say my best friend over and over again.
I want to just be able to say Sally
and have you know who I mean.
So here this allows me to tell you that information
without making a whole sentence
that says my best friend's name is Sally.
Here we're going to do the exact opposite.
We're going to give that proper noun, Buddy,
and then we're going to tell you who Buddy is, her Persian cat.
We could just say Buddy has a very flat face but without
that little bit of extra information,
we won't know who Buddy is.
We might give an explanation in non-essential information
like her husband claims, when Sally's not around.
So that tells us when he does this claim
that Buddy's face was slammed in the door as a kitten.
Now because I've told you who Buddy is and who Sally is
in my previous sentences as non-essential information,
you don't have to ask me who's this Sally chick or who's Buddy?
We can transition with non-essential information.
However is often used.
Therefore is another one that gets used in mid sentence
or often at the beginning of sentences.
So if Sally, however, thinks her cat is beautiful.
We could just Sally thinks her cat is beautiful
but however helps us connect that information
to the sentence before and after.
And then an address.
An address where you talk to somebody.
So sometimes you might be talking to a friend like hey,
Joe comma what are you doing or hey mom,
I really need some money.
Here this is a mid sentence address.
We're going to say I know what you think, dear reader,
but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
We don't need the words dear reader here
but they help us connect a little bit to the sentence.
All right.
Now this is probably the most common use of commas
that people have trouble
with for academic writing is using commas while quoting.
When you're directly quoting a source, you often need
to use a comma if the sentence --
or if the quote hasn't been integrated
into your own sentence.
So let's see how that works.
If we just say something like so and so said or argued or wrote,
and then plopped the quote in.
We're going to use a comma like here.
Douglas Adams argued comma
and then we stuck the whole quote in there.
We don't have to save the world.
The world is big enough to look after itself.
What we have to be concerned about is whether
or not the world we live in will be capable
of sustaining us in it.
Easy peasy.
However, we can also try to integrate the quote
into our own language and make it a little smoother.
Douglas Adams argued that the quote world is big enough
to look after itself end quote and we should focus
on quote whether or not the world we live in will be capable
of sustaining us in it.
A lot of times teachers prefer this second method to the first
because it allows you to be more specific
about what you're talking about.
And it shows that you, as the writer, understand the quotes
that you're using well enough to break them up and work with them
as opposed to just copy and paste.
You've actually thought about what it means
and how it connects to what you're saying.
Somewhat of a hybrid of those two.
Arguing that quote the world is big enough to look
after itself comma -- and that's a comma there
because it's an introductory phase or a dependent clause
at the beginning there, Douglas Adams urged people
to be more concerned about quote whether or not the world we live
in will be capable of sustaining us in it.
So we've got a comma there but it's not because it's a quote.
It's because we've got a dependent clause.
Okay?
So we're going to do some practice.
I would suggest, right now, hitting pause on your player
because I'm only going to pause
for a few seconds before I start going through.
So I'll give you about 10 or 15 seconds.
Go ahead and pause and run through this.
All right.
You might want to hit pause if you're not done yet.
So this first one.
We've got an address in the middle here.
We should have eaten Mom before we left the house.
If we don't put any commas into the sentence,
we've got a serious problem
because if we don't put any commas in,
we're going to eat our mom.
And that's probably not very good.
So we want to put commas before and after mom.
And that tells us that's non-essential information
for sentence.
We could just say we should have eaten before we left the house.
There aren't enough seats for everyone
so we need to find some more.
So we've got two independent clauses.
There aren't enough seats for everyone
and we need to find some more.
And they've got a FANBOY in there.
So but we don't have a comma.
So we're going to put a comma right before so.
If we don't have enough seats someone will have
to sit on the floor.
So we've got a dependent clause first
and then an independent clause.
We've got if we don't have enough seats
and then someone will have to sit on the floor.
So we're going to put a comma right
after the dependent clause before the independent.
So after seats.
I don't mind being a floor sitter if that is necessary
but I don't really want to.
This one's a little tricky.
We definitely have two complete sentences.
Two independent clauses.
We've got I don't really want to
and I don't mind being a floor sitter.
The phrase if that is necessary is not a complete idea.
It could be considered one of two things.
It could be either unnecessary information
or non-essential information
so we could put commas on both sides of it.
Or it could be considered a dependent clause
in which case we don't need to put commas there.
So you can put a comma before if but you don't necessarily have
to but you have to put one before but.
The beautiful intelligent woman answered every question she
was asked.
We can swap beautiful intelligent.
We could say she's intelligent beautiful woman.
We could also say the beautiful and intelligent woman.
So these are coordinating adjectives so we're going
to put a comma between them.
I haven't seen any good bands other than Signal the Red
since I moved to Sacramento.
We could say this sentence, I haven't seen any good bands
since I moved to Sacramento.
So that other than the Signal the Red is
non-essential information.
We're going to put commas on either side of it.
The best most important answer you can give is an honest one.
Best and most important.
Those are coordinating.
We can swap them around.
The most important best answer you can give.
So we're going to put a comma between the two.
College often seems more difficult than it needs
to be but it's important.
So we've got two complete thoughts.
It's important and college often seems more difficult
than it needs to be.
So we're going to put a comma right before that but.
In fact going to college is one
of the single greatest things you can do.
We're going to put a comma right after in fact
because that is some non-essential information.
It's a transition.
It just leads us into this idea for the rest of the paragraph.
We're not going to put a comma between single and greatest
because while those are adjectives,
they build on each other.
They don't -- they can't be swapped around.
You can't say the greatest single thing.
So it's single greatest every time.
And this last one which is the hardest one.
Should I serve kidney beans which are red cranberry beans
which are white and red or chickpeas which are tan?
So we're going to put semi-colons after the word bean
or after the words that are colors.
So you're going to do a semi-colon after red,
a semi-colon after the other word red and we're going
to do a comma before the each which.
The reason we do this is because we've got several ideas
and we have to have a comma inside the things
that we're listing.
If we didn't use the semi-colons it would be kidney beans comma
which are red comma.
Cranberry beans comma which are white and red comma
or chickpeas comma which are tan.
And it would be hard to tell what things connect
to one another.
So those semi-colons help us figure that out.
Thank you for coming.
Thank you for watching.
If you have any more questions about how to use commas properly
for the writing for academic purposes,
come to the Writing Center.
You can make an appointment by calling us at 558-2126.
Thanks. Have a great day.