In the first part of the series on “Understanding the conventions of academic writing”, I discussed these two common error patterns: i) Missing comma after ...

Attorneys deal with laws for a living. Bureaucrats work with regulations. Restaurateurs contend with heat, spice and the irregularity of natural ingredients. I work with words and, occasionally, ...

Contrary to popular belief, commas don't just signify pauses in a sentence. In fact, precise rules govern when to use this punctuation mark. When followed, they lay the groundwork for clear written ...

THE OXFORD COMMA is a form of punctuation – but it’s become a cause of much debate over its usage. So when should you use it and where? We all use commas when writing lists of things. But the Oxford ...

When combining two complete sentences with a conjunction ("and," "but," "or," "for," or "yet"), precede the conjunction with a comma. Example: Still, the sun is slowly getting brighter and hotter, and ...

An Oxford, or serial, comma is the last comma in a list; it goes before the word "and." Technically, it's grammatically optional in American English. However, depending on the list you are writing out ...

In order to make your writing clear, you need to use commas. As well as using them to separate out key information, or divide up different clauses, commas can also completely change the meaning of a ...

One of my students once told me that when she writes something she always puts a comma wherever she thinks someone should take a breath. She defended this by saying this is what they do in a musical ...

Y'all, get ready to have your world turned upside down by some titillating grammar news: Someone has introduced a new punctuation mark. While it may not seem like a big deal to you, for an English ...