Comma misunderstandings…

Rule # 1 Comma Rule #1: Use commas with items in a series. Example: My friend Sam plays baseball, basketball, and football. *Things to remember: Make sure you put a comma before the conjunction, too!

Rule # 2 Comma Rule #2: Use commas with coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) to join 2 INDEPENDENT clauses. Coordinating conjunctions: AKA- FANBOYS: For And Nor But Or Yet So *Thing to remember: You put the comma before the FANBOY! •You also have to have 2 subjects, 2 verbs, and both sentences have to make sense alone! Example: Sam wanted to play rugby for the Falcons this year, but he couldn’t play both rugby and football.

Rule # 3 Comma Rule #3: Use commas with standard conventions. 1. In salutations and closings of letters 2. After the day AND year in a sentence Example: The tryouts for football are Wednesday, May 10, 2013, and it will be an important day for Sam. 3. After the city and state if it is in the middle of a sentence. Example: I want to go to Dallas, Texas, because I have always loved the Cowboys. 4. Between the street address and the city in an address in a sentence Example: You attend school at 400 Red Hawk Parkway, Smyrna, Tennessee, at Stewarts Creek Middle. *Things to remember: if you have a comma in the convention, you need a comma after it, too!

Rule # 4 Comma Rule #4: To set off non- essential (= extra information) elements (clauses, phrases, words) These are generally the appositives. Can also be direct address. • Let’s eat, Grandma. Examples: 1. Allison, my best friend, is going on vacation next week. –Phrase 2. The teacher, who taught seventh graders everyday, was a little nervous about his new student.— Clause 3. The new student, Mark, participated in class the first day.—Word

Rule # 5 Comma Rule #5: Use comma after introductory elements – Words, Phrases, Clauses Example: Mary, would you get the door please?-- Words --Phrases: Phrases do not have both a subject and verb and cannot stand alone. Types of Phrases: Prepositional, Gerund, Participial, Infinitive, Appositive Examples: • Mrs. Walker loves reading all kinds of books.-- Gerund • Without representation, a criminal will surely get convicted.—Prepositional • Hoping for a new cell phone, my brother couldn’t sleep at all the night before his birthday.—Participial and Appositive • To celebrate their victory, the coach took the team out for pizza.—Infinitive.

Rule #5 (continued) – Clauses or independent: Have both a subject and a verb - subordinate or dependent: can’t stand alone Example: After the sun went down, the music drifted on the night air.

Comma Rule #6 Comma Rule #6: When you use a series of adjectives, you often separate the adjectives with commas. You only use a comma between adjectives when the word and can be inserted between them. Examples: He is a strong, healthy man. 
We stayed at an expensive summer resort. You would not say expensive and summer resort, so no comma.

Exit Ticket Why are commas so important to our writing? How does the understanding of the following two sentences/ phrases change when the comma placement changes? Well done steak Well done, steak!