How To Use Commas Esl
A lot of people have strong feelings about putting a comma before and in a list.
How to use commas esl. And it s no wonder. Find out more in this bitesize primary ks2 english guide. Period question mark exclamation point comma semicolon colon dash hyphen parentheses brackets braces. Use commas to separate words and word groups in a simple series of three or more items. It s almost always optional to put a comma before and in a list.
One simple trick i share with my students is that if they read a sentence out loud they will hear themselves momentarily pause where there should be a comma. Comma is used to mark off a participial phrase from the rest of the sentence. Milton the great english poet was blind. We use commas to mark off a noun or phrase in apposition. Of all the punctuation marks in english this one is perhaps the most abused and misused.
15 rules for using a comma. You usually put a comma before and when it s connecting two independent clauses. So how do you use commas correctly. The 14 most commonly used punctuation marks are. A comma is used to show the difference between two separate ideas or elements within a sentence.
Caesar having conquered his enemies returned to rome. Comma before and in lists. When the last comma in a series comes before and or or after daughter in law in the above example it is known as the oxford comma most newspapers and magazines drop the oxford comma in a simple series apparently. To use english punctuation correctly remember to always capitalize the first letter of a sentence as well as the names of specific people places and things. Commas can be used between statements to make a sentence easier to read.
Whether or not you put a comma before and depends on how you re using and there s no single rule that applies to all situations. There are lots of rules about comma usage and often the factors that determine whether you should use one are quite subtle. As an esl teacher i have seen commas misused in dozens of ways. Driven by rain we took shelter under a tree. A comma is a punctuation mark used to denote a pause in the sentence shorter than a colon or a semicolon.