| A | B |
|---|
| Put the eggs, cheese, and butter on the table. | use commas to separate 3 or more words, phrases, or clauses |
| At the beginning of the lecture, the speaker introduced himself. | use a comma after two or more introductory prepositional phrases or after a long introductory phrase |
| Working around the clock, the firefighters finally put out the last of the brush fires. | use a comma after introductory participles or participial phrases |
| Jimbo Gold, a professional magician, performed at my sister's birthday party. | use commas to set off an appositive if it is not essential to the meaning of the sentence |
| Sally, of course, is never late to class. | use a comma to set off words that interrupt the flow of thought in a sentence |
| Meanwhile, the athletes trained on the Nautilus equipment. | use commas to show a pause after an introductory word |
| We picked them up early, but they still missed their plane. | use a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentencce |
| Because they have a test tomorrow, the students were studying. | use a comma after an introductory adverb clause |
| The teacher returned the homework after she noticed the error. | usually commas are not used with adverb clauses that come at the end of sentences |
| The bus trip began on July 5, 2001, and lasted four weeks. | use commas before and after the year when it is used with both the month and the day |
| The journey ended in August 2005. | do not use a comma if only the month and the year are given |
| People came from as far away as Buffalo, New York, to travel with the tour. | use commas before and after the name of a state or a country when it is used with the city |
| 146 East Main St., Huntington, NY 11743 | do not use a comma after the state if it is used with a zip code |
| Carol Warren, M.D., studied the effects of motion sickness | use a comma or pair of commas to set off an abbreviated title or degree following a person's name |
| Kerry said, "Busses are more efficient than cars." | use a comma to set off a direct quotation |
| I am going home; I intend to stay there. | use a semicolon to join parts of a compound sentence |
| I need the following items for the party: balloons, streamers, and plates. | use a colon to introduce a list of items that ends a sentence |
| to separate | set off |
| I read the article "Summer Fun" in my latest magazine. | use quotation marks around the title of a short story, essay, poem, song, magazine or newspaper article, or book chapter |
| Scat, ROT, Fitness...underlining not available | use italics or underlining for the title of a book, play, film, tv series, magazine, newspaper, or work of art. |
