Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part II, The Use of the Serial Comma

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

The serial comma is the last comma before the conjunction in a series of items in a sentence.

Example: Chariss, Nigel, Rohne, and Henry leave the Arcanan estate in my epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods.

The final comma after “Rohne” is referred to as the serial comma. What’s unique about it is how much trouble it can cause for writers.

If you’re writing a novel, business letter, personal letter to a friend, book report, etc., you use the serial comma.

If you’re writing an article for the newspaper, a magazine, a letter to the editor or some other journalistic medium, you do not use the serial comma. That’s the preferred style of the Associated Press. Now, if the items in the list include a complex construction, the serial comma is retained for clarity.

Example: Loetha and Lahs, Hrazon and Mia, and one of the guards joined Nigel and Chariss on their trip to Arcana City that evening. Nigel felt foolish with so many chaperones along for the journey.

Do you see the serial comma? It's the one after Mia's name. Because the group traveling to the city is split into pairs, its members' names are combined in the list, creating compound subjects in the list. Loetha and Lahs is one compound subject. Hrazon and Mia is the next. The elements of the series contain their own conjunctions, making the sentence more cumbersome if you leave out the serial comma.

When writing a term paper or thesis for a grade, you may be asked to follow other stylebooks that dictate the serial comma’s use, and you should refer to and follow those guides. (Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, your professor’s latest mood swing, etc.)

For additional information on commas, the Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law is your Bible. As I pointed out in yesterday's Grammar Guide, its bent is toward journalism, thus there will be minor differences in punctuation rules when using AP versus "normal" English. For "normal" English, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from http://www.penguin.com/).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, punctuation, serial comma, stylebook, Choices Meant for Gods, Associated Press, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part I, General Overview

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

No matter what stylebook you're using, there's a disclaimer in there somewhere about punctuation. For all the rules about commas, semicolons and where question marks go in relation to closing quotation marks, simplifying your syntax is usually the best prescription for clarifying your statements.

What?

It's the KISS principle applied to punctuation. If you've constructed a 175-word declarative with a participial phrase or two and something set off in a parenthetical, and you're trying to remember whether or not to capitalize the word after the colon, it's time to start over. Consider editing that sentence into two or more thoughts that your reader can follow without getting tired or lost.

The point of writing good paragraphs is not to impress the reader with lofty prose and convoluted structure. The point is to get your message across in a clear and concise manner that moves the reader. You want sentences of varying lengths. Your words should already be a part of your audience's lexicon. And your punctuation should reflect a style that your readers are used to. Too many semicolons, serial commas and run-on sentences will tire the reader quickly, if not lose him/her completely. Let me give you an example of a sentence you won't find in my book, Choices Meant for Gods.

"Chariss ran the few paces to the obedient girl and stood between her and the bend in the road with her feet shoulder-width apart and her arms raised to cock the bow before her, where Hrazon saw her now as he pushed his way through the people blocking the doorway to hear the roar of something large down the lane; saw her standing there posed like a warrior; saw her thin arms bulged with muscle and tension as she stood with the bow poised taut against her strength while they all held their breath, wondering what was happening until a ryfel appeared—not rounding the bend or running up to her, but materializing as if in the training arena."

Did you get past the fourth or fifth line? Let me offer a disclaimer right now and say that I would never write something as crazy as that. (I hope.)

Here's the way the passage actually appears in my fantasy novel. Note the use of commas, different sentence lengths and alliteration to move the words.

"Chariss ran the few paces to the obedient girl and stood between her and the bend in the road. She stood with her feet shoulder-width apart and her arms raised to cock the bow before her. Hrazon had pushed his way through the people blocking the doorway now and heard the roar of something large down the lane. He looked at his girl standing there posed like a warrior. Her thin arms bulged with muscle and tension as she stood, waiting, watching, with the bow poised taut against her strength.

"They all held their breath, wondering what was happening.

"A ryfel appeared out of nowhere. It hadn't rounded the bend. It hadn't run up to her. It just materialized before her as if in the training area. Nigel shuddered when he recognized the beast and called back into the house, "Henry! My sword!""

While it's all well and good for a writer and editor to tell you to break things down and keep punctuation simple, I know you're looking for specifics when you look up punctuation rules in the Grammar Guides here. Thus this is the first in a short series of common punctuation mark discussions we'll have over the next few days to help you punctuate clearly and correctly.

Before we close today's installment, let me recommend a couple of resources. For general style issues concerning Standard English grammar and writing, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is a nice book, but the editors aren't as in-depth as I'd like on many issues. SparkNotes' Ultimate Style The Rules of Writing is also good, but just as shallow as Strunk and White. For journalists, the Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law is your Bible. Buy the most current version and memorize it. (I'm not joking.) AP also has a Guide to Punctuation, but, keep in mind, the bent is toward journalism, thus magazine/newspaper reporting. There will be minor differences in punctuation rules when using AP versus Standard English grammar. For Standard English grammar, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from www.penguin.com).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, grammar, punctuation, comma, semicolon, clarity, stylebook, Choices Meant for Gods, punctuation rules, Strunk and White, Elements of Style, Rules of Writing, Associated Press, Guide to Punctuation, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
The Rest of the Commas

In the last Grammar Guide, we discussed the use of the serial comma, which is the last comma before the “and” in a series (or list) of items. For Standard English writing, which most of us do, the serial comma is used. But there are other times when the comma can be a dodgy item. You stare at it, dangling there like a misplaced participle, and you wonder, should I delete that?

Here’s the thing to remember about commas: they are used to add clarity. They set off phrases and clauses from the rest of the sentence to reduce clutter and make things clearer for the reader. For example, the following piece of paragraph is taken from a deleted scene from Choices Meant for Gods. Nigel and Chariss are visiting in the stables the morning after his brush with death, and the gentleman has contrived a way to run his fingers through her hair.

He stroked his fingers down her tresses, all the way through to the ends where the curves and waves ended in little rolls that mimicked the wavecaps rushing to Arcana’s shore. By the gods, he wanted to feel those ends tickling along his chest, like they had last night, when she’d leaned over him to heal the wound that should have killed him. He moved one hand back to the top of her head, fully aware that she’d just shivered at this unfamiliar touch. Oh, that’s got to be a good sign, he thought.

I want to call your attention to the first comma in the example. The comma separates the complete phrase “He stroked his fingers down her tresses” and the incomplete phrase “all the way, etc.” Look also at the third sentence. The comma in that sentence separates the complete phrase “He moved one hand back to the top of her head” and “fully aware, etc.” In both of these sentences, the comma comes after a complete phrase—a complete sentence, as it were. The phrases could be ended with periods. But the commas replace the periods I could have used and signify that more is to come. The more the reader gets is an additional phrase that modifies what he has already read. In the first instance, “all the way through, etc.” tells how Nigel stroked his fingers down her tresses. In the second instance, “fully aware that she’d just shivered” describes “He.”

In the final sentence, the comma before “he thought” is used to set off an attribution, which was discussed in the Grammar Guides about punctuating quotation in dialogue in January.

Another use of the comma is another form of separating phrases, but it has to do with changing subjects. For instance, when you have two complete sentences, but you want to combine them, you can do something like this:

Chariss put her arm out to catch him, and he experienced that momentary shock of lightning when he got to touch her.

The comma signifies that the subject is going to change in the second half of this sentence. I’ve seen people make mistakes with this construction, though. Be sure that you’re actually combining two sentences (two subjects and two verbs) or the use of the comma before the “and” is incorrect.

Chariss put her arm out to catch him and felt a momentary shock of lightning at the touch.

In this example, Chariss is the one catching, touching, and feeling the momentary shock of lightning. The subject doesn’t change, even though there is more than one verb. In the first example, Chariss did the catching, but the subject changed to Nigel in the second half of the sentence. Nigel did the touching and feeling the momentary shock of lightning. (And isn’t that sweet?)

What other comma uses can you think of that we should cover here at The Dragon? Let me know! And/or give me some examples of comma use here so we can make sure we’re all on the same page.

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fourteen-plus years and is the author of the upcoming fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods.)
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, grammar, comma, comma use, fantasy novel, dragon

Grammar Guide
The Serial Comma

Here at The Dragon, I have the unforgivable sin of switching randomly from journalistic style (AP style) to good ol’ Standard English grammar style in my blog articles. I can’t help it. I forget which style I decided to use when I set up Today the Dragon Wins and, well, you get both. And you’re going to continue to get both so long as I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown…

So let’s discuss the use of the serial comma, which you see (sometimes) here at The Dragon. First, I will define the serial comma: it’s the last comma before the word “and” in a series of items in a sentence.

Hrazon, Chariss, Rohne, and Nigel star in my new novel Choices Meant for Gods.

The final comma after “Rohne” is referred to as the serial comma. What’s unique about it is how much trouble it causes for writers.

If you’re writing a novel, business letter, personal letter to a friend, book report, etc., you use the serial comma. It shows up. It gets included.

If you’re writing an article for the newspaper, a magazine, a letter to the editor, or some other journalistic medium, you do not use the serial comma. It disappears. It gets left out. That’s the way the Associated Press likes things to be.

If you’re writing a term paper or thesis for a grade, there are other style books that dictate the serial comma’s use, and you should refer to and follow those guides (Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, your professor’s latest mood swing, etc.).

And that’s all there is to it! It’s terribly simple. For Standard English writing, which most people do, use the comma before the “and” in a series of items. In the next Grammar Guide, we’ll talk about “the rest of the commas.”

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fourteen-plus years and is the author of the upcoming novel Choices Meant for Gods.)
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Tags:Choices Meant for Gods, grammar, serial comma, Sandy Lender