Commas help us improve our way of writing especially on structuring our sentences. Commas can make your sentence look clearer and that everyone can understand your message clearly. Without the proper use of commas, it will ruin your whole sentences and it will only ruin your whole content and no one will be able to understand your text.

Although this kind of a punctuation is very common and we seldom notice it when writing, it’s role in your language and grammar is very important even if you didn’t consider its essence at all. Most of the time, people are not aware of its proper usage. As a result, they end up writing bad grammars and low quality contents.

Even if commas are only a matter of writings symbols, it can still make a bigger difference and change in your writing. That is why you need to be knowledgeable enough to learn its proper uses. Basic rules in using commas can be found at any language tutorial books or when you search for it over the internet.

These rules are so simple and anyone can remember it easily and apply it in their writing. But what’s more confusing about commas is their correct usage in a complex and compound sentence. There are times that you place commas in a wrong time and situation. Others place many commas in their sentences while others forgot to include it in their phrases. The question is, when and how are you going to place multiple or limited commas in your compound and complex sentences?

Back in school, I’ve been chastised by professors for being too generous with the use of commas. I’ve tempered it to some degree, but continue to find the activity a bit challenging.

My writing software catches most of my errant comma use. However, upon manual proofing, I usually find a couple or so that it manages to miss. Even after that, a good editor can still spot several incorrect uses in some of my copy.

In truth, deciding the time and place to use a comma is not always intuitive. Sure, it’s easy enough when you’re putting together lists and other itemized things. Begin writing compound and complex sentences, however, and you’ll begin to realize the dilemma.

Here, then, is the simple two-point guide to using commas in strung-together sentences, so that you too may put out properly-punctuated prose.

In compound and complex sentences, commas are always placed right after the conjunction, never before.
If you are not connecting two complete sentences, they should not be separated with a comma.

Is it always that simple? Not really. In many cases, especially nowadays, editors prefer to eliminate commas if the sentence makes sense without it. This is true even when connecting two complete sentences. Simply put, the general perception is that commas impede readability. Basically, too much punctuation can leave the reader more confused than enlightened. As such, a third guideline should be to “limit commas when they are necessary for the sentence to make perfect sense.”

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