How To Use Commas - English Writing Lesson

Hello, I'm Oli.

Welcome to Oxford Online English.

In this lesson, you can learn about using commas.

Students often seem very confused about commas and how to use them correctly.

Commas are quite complicated, because they don't just do one thing.

Actually, commas have many different jobs in the sentence.

So in this lesson, I'll explain the different types of comma, what they do and how you can

use them.

Let's start with our first type of comma: the listing comma.

As the name suggests, the listing comma is used to list items or ideas one after another.

For example: "We need two cucumbers, four tomatoes, some onions and a lettuce."

We use commas to separate the items on the list.

Before the word 'and' in British English, we don't usually use a comma.

In American English, a comma is often used before 'and'.

It's your choice which style you use.

Both are correct.

This comma - the listing comma - replaces the words 'and' or 'or'.

You could say: "We need two cucumbers and four tomatoes and some onions and a lettuce."

It's not wrong, but it doesn't sound good, so it's better to use the commas.

Your list could include phrases, or even complete sentences.

The principle is the same.

For example: "We spent our time relaxing on the beach, swimming in the sea and drinking

coffee in the seaside cafés."

In this case, the items on our list are whole phrases; they're not just single words, but

the principle is the same.

We use a comma after each item, and in British English, not before the word 'and'.

You can also use the listing comma - sometimes- to separate adjectives before a noun.

Look at two sentences: "She has long, dark, shiny hair."

"He bought a bottle of dark, German beer."

In the first sentence, we use listing commas to separate the adjectives.

In the second sentence, we don't.

Can you see why?

Well, remember we said that the listing comma replaces the words 'and' or 'or'.

You can say: "She has long and dark and shiny hair."

It doesn't sound good, but it's possible.

so in this case we use listing commas between the adjectives.

But you cannot say: "He bought a bottle of dark and German beer."

It's not possible, so in this case we don't use listing commas.

If you're not sure, you can use this trick: try replacing the commas with the word 'and'.

If it sounds OK, then you need commas.

If it doesn't sound right, you don't need commas.

OK, what's our second comma?

It's the joining comma!

The joining comma is used to join two complete sentences, together with a linking word.

For example: "We were tired, and we really didn't feel like going anywhere."

In this sentence, each half of the sentence could stand by itself.

"We were tired," is a complete sentence, and "We really didn't feel like going anywhere,"

is also a complete sentence.

So we can put the two sentences together with a comma and the linking word 'and'.

Other linking words you can use in this way include 'and', 'but', 'or' or 'although'.

There are many others as well; that's not a complete list.

However, you do need to be careful with these commas; you can't use a comma to join two

complete sentences without using a linking word.

You also can't use joining commas with some linking words.

Let's practise: look at some sentences and see if they're right or wrong.

Here are the four sentences.

Read them, pause the video and think about your answer - which are correct and which

are not correct in terms of comma use?

OK, ready?

Let's look at the answers.

(1) and (4) are correct.

(2) and (3) are not correct.

Let's see why.

Sentence two: "I applied for the job, I really hope I get it," is not correct because there's

no linking word between the sentences.

You could say: "I applied for the job, and I really hope I get it."

You could also say: "I applied for the job."

- full stop - "I really hope I get it."

But you can't use a comma to join two full sentences like this.

In the second sentence: "She didn't get the grades she needed, however she got into the

university in any case."

We use the linking word 'however', but we don't use commas with 'however'.

The best way to link these sentences is with a full stop, so we put a full stop after the

word 'needed', and then start a new sentence with 'however'.

You might be thinking that number four is wrong because the second part of the sentence

isn't a full sentence.

That's true, but the important point is that it could be a full sentence.

You could say: "You'll either have to start again, or you'll have to find someone to help

you."

We shorten the sentence to make it simpler and easier to say, so it's OK to use the joining

comma here.

Number three is the bracketing comma.

This is possibly the most difficult comma to use.

It's used to add an extra phrase or piece of information into a sentence.

It's often used in pairs.

For example: "This book, first published in 1956, is still useful for students today."

The phrase in red is extra information about the book, and so we put it between a pair

of commas.

"One of my colleagues, who used to be a semi-professional footballer, invited me to play in their five-a-side

team this weekend."

Again, the information in red is extra information about my colleague, and so the information

goes between a pair of commas.To use bracketing commas, the sentence must make sense and be

grammatically complete without the extra information.

In these cases you can see that if we remove the information in red: "This book is still

useful for students today" - that's still a complete sentence and it makes sense.

Also, if I say: "One of my colleagues invited me to play in their five-a-side team this

weekend," again, that's a full sentence; it's grammatically correct; it's clear - we don't

need the information between the bracketing commas for the sentence to make sense.

In both cases, the sentence is complete and the meaning is clear without the extra information.

This makes it easy to see if your commas are correct or not.

If you're using commas in this way, ask yourself whether the sentence would make sense without

the phrase between commas.

If not, something is wrong.

For example: "He was a strict, and sometimes cruel leader, who was feared by his staff."

This might look OK, but if we try to remove the red text between commas, we get: "He was

a strict who was feared by his staff."

This doesn't make sense.

He was a strict what?

Another example: "Pens, which can write upside-down, are used by NASA astronauts on the International

Space Station."

Again, it looks OK, but if we remove the red text - the extra information - we get: "Pens

are used by NASA astronauts on the International Space Station."

Now this is a clear sentence and it's grammatically correct, but it has a different meaning.

We didn't want to say that just any pens are used.

We wanted to say that a special kind of pen is used, so we've changed the meaning of the

sentence.

If the extra phrase is near the beginning or the end of a sentence, you might just use

one bracketing comma instead of using a pair.

Let's look: "Similar to most people his age, he isn't really thinking about his future."

Again, the text in red is extra information, but it comes at the beginning of the sentence.

That means we don't need two commas; we can just use one.

"He told me that he wanted to quit and become a painter, which surprised me."

Again, it's extra information, but it's at the end of the sentence, so we just use one

comma and then a full stop.

Finally, let's look at some common mistakes with commas.

There are three mistakes which I see students making a lot.

Let's look so you can hopefully avoid making these mistakes.

Don't put a comma between a subject and its verb.

For example, this sentence is incorrect, because 'The people we met on holiday' is the subject;

'were' is the main verb.

There should not be a comma between the subject and the main verb.

In this sentence, we have the same problem.

The subject, again, is not one word; it's a phrase: 'Everything in those cupboards'.

The main verb is 'needs', so again, there should not be a comma between the subject

and the main verb.

Don't use a comma before 'that'.

This is a useful rule, because it's quite easy.

"She told me, that she wanted to move to London," or: "I had no idea, that he could speak Japanese."

In both of these sentences there should not be a comma before 'that'.

Don't use a comma to join two sentences if you don't use a linking word.

In this case, both parts of the sentence before and after the comma could be full sentences

by themselves.

So in this case, you either need to use a linking word, like 'and' or ' but' or 'or'

or something like that, or you need to use a full stop after 'year'.

You can't use a comma like this.

Here, we have the same problem.

We have two ideas.

Each idea could be a sentence by itself, and there's no linking word, so we can't use a

comma to join two complete sentences like this without a linking word.

OK, that's the end of the lesson.

I hope it was useful.

If you want to see the full lesson, which includes the text, so you can read everything,

and also a quiz to help you practise and test your comma skill, come to our website: www.oxfordonlineenglish.com.

There are also many other free English lessons there.

But that's all.

Thanks again for watching, and I'll see you next time.

Bye bye!