Hello everyone:

i just wanted to clarify something. It has to do with the use of vocative commas. Vocative commas are used when you are separating a person’s name from the rest of the sentence, such as the following:

John, it’s good to see you.

You would use the vocative comma instead of writing: John it’s good to see you.

You also need to use a comma with parenthetic expressions. An example of this is a follows:

It is my opinion, and I travel once a month, that flying beats driving.

Please note that, if you use one comma in the sentence, you must use both. Sometimes students don’t use any when writing parenthetic expressions and that can be confusing at best.

Hope this helps!

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

Oxford commas are great at preventing misunderstanding. One of my students sent me a news report on a court case filed on behalf of some workers who thought they deserved overtime. The issue? The lack of an Oxford comma.

So, what is one, you might ask? An Oxford comma is used between the last item in a list of things and the second-to-the-last item. Here are some examples of when they are used and when they are left out:

I love my parents, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck. (Your parents are a couple of ducks, which automatically makes you quackers.) To verify that you are talking about three separate individuals, use an Oxford comma: I love my parents, Donald Duck, and Daisy Duck.

I want to leave my 3 million dollars to my children: Child A, Child B and Child C. Child A gets 1 1/2 million; Child B and Child C split the other 1 1/2 million dollars. With the Oxford comma, the sentence reads: I want to leave my 3 million dollars to Child A, Child B, and Child C. Everyone gets one million and all are happy. [Note to my children: I named you with regular names, but sadly do not have 3 million dollars to leave you. Enjoy your names, ’cause there isn’t much else to get!]

I hope this helps!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Hello everyone:

Today, let’s visit the world of parenthetic expressions. This is, when you are writing, a brief pause in the middle of a sentence to add some additional information. It also applies to speaking, but I wanted to give you an example of what I was talking about right up front.

Sometimes it is hard to decide if you need the commas, but, if you have one comma, you must include the second one.

For example, you would not say the following:

This is, when you are writing a brief pause in the middle of a sentence to add some more information.

This looks like someone is just putting a comma after a verb. My students do this frequently; it is incorrect.

Here is the same sentence with no commas:

This is when you are writing a brief pause in the middle of a sentence to add some more information.

See how fast that gets confusing? Therefore, when you have a parenthetic expression, use two commas. Keep me happy.

Best,

Dr. Sheri