The Common Uses of Commas

Happy Friday!

This is "crunch" week for me. I'm finishing up the grades for a summer class, just started four online classes, and am gearing up for my two on-campus classes that start on Tuesday. Suffice it to say, it's a bit crazy. I love what I do, though, so I'm doing what I need to get done. This time reminds me of all the concepts of grammar and how students often struggle with them.

Today's blog and video deal with the lowly comma. It's such a tiny, teeny punctuation mark, but it's misused so often. Students tend either to overuse it or under-use it. The good news? You can learn the most common uses, and when you use them correctly, your instructors will be quite impressed! Before we start, let's look at it from the comma's point of view (yes, we English teachers do have a warped sense of humor!):

Okay. Now to more serious matters.

First, take a look at the video ...

Now that you've learned the concepts, go back to my introductory paragraph. Can you see real-life examples of the concepts? Test yourself. Feel free to comment your answers, and I'll respond next week.

Speaking of next week, come back and we'll look at other punctuation marks (the apostrophe, the semi-colon, and the colon, among others).



Keep pen to paper ... and keep practicing!

Professor Rinehart