Punctuation
Commas

Lists
• Use a comma to separate things in a list.
– I want to spend some time eating pizza,
drinking orange juice and playing football.
In Australia and England we only If there is an and/but/or in the
use a comma in a list to replace sentence we don’t tend to use
and/but/or. the comma before it
In the USA and Canada there is the practice of including a comma
before the last thing in the list, even if there is an and/but/or in the
sentence. Even though I will mark both as correct, I prefer the
Australian way.
–I want to spend some time eating pizza,
drinking orange juice, and playing football.

Introductory Phrases
• Commas are often used to separate
introductory phrases.
– Suddenly, the bomb exploded.
– Quickly, Bill ran for the window.
– With shaking hands, he opened the latch and
climbed out.
– Scrambling rapidly, Bill scaled down the wall
of the house.
It is easy to recognise ‘introductory phrases’. If
you took them out of the sentence, the sentence
would still make sense.

See?
– The bomb exploded.
– Bill ran for the window.
– He opened the latch and climbed out.
– Bill scaled down the wall of the house.
These all make sense without the introductory
phrase.

Adjective Lists
• It was a dark, damp, desperate day.
• Bill felt his bruised, battered and buffeted
body fly out the door.
• The need for perfect, concise comma use
is important for English students.
Adjectives are describing words. If you
have one straight after another, put a
comma in.

Complete these Exercises
Commas