Commas Commas Commas

Whenever I’ve gone to the Writing Center for help on my papers, the tutors almost always say, “This looks great, but you need help on your commas.” I’m either use them too much, or I don’t use them enough. I can’t win! I think what helped me the most this week was learning about essential and nonessential clauses and what it really means when you use commas in those types of sentences.

I tend to put commas in sentences where I would make a pause in a conversation. That isn’t the case most of the time. In the AP Stylebook under essential clauses, nonessential clauses (p.98), it mentions that both types of cluases have more information about a word or phrase within the sentence. The difference is that essential clauses need the additonal meaning in the sentence, or it would change the meaning of the sentence if it were removed. The meaning in nonessential clauses would stay the same whether the additional meaning is included or removed. 

The commas are what help determine if it is a nonessential clause or essential clause. The example in the book is the sentence “Reporters, who do not read the Stylebook, should not criticize their editors.” In this sentence, the author means that all reporters should not criticize their editors. They could take out “who do not read the stylebook,” and it would mean the same thing.

In the sentence “Reporters who do not read the stylebook should not criticize their editors,” the author means a very specific kind of reporter should not criticize their editors.