1. DANIEL PRESTON JULY 23, 2010

2. Commas, semicolons, and colons.

3. BBefore a coordinating conjunction joining independent clauses NNearly everyone has heard of love at first sight, but I fell in love at first dance. EException: Short clauses with no chance of confusion. AAfter an introductory clause WWhen Irwin was ready to iron, his cat tripped on the cord.

4.  Between all items in a list  Uncle David willed me his property, houses, and warehouses.  Use commas to set off transitional and parenthetical phrases.

5.  Between coordinate adjectives, but not between cumulative adjectives.  Roberto is a warm, gentle, affectionate father.  Adjectives are coordinate if they can be connected with ‘and’. If the adjectives cannot easily be connected with ‘and’, they are cumulative.  Three large grey shapes moved toward us.  It would be strange to read the sentence as ‘Three and large and grey shapes moved toward us.’

6.  Use commas to set off nonrestrictive clauses, but not restrictive ones.  A nonrestrictive clause provides extra, non-required information to the sentence.  For camp the children need sturdy clothes, which may be expensive.  A restrictive clause adds necessary information to the sentence.  For camp the children need clothes that are washable.

7.  Use commas to set off nouns of direct address, the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’, interrogative tags, and mild interjections.  Forgive us, Dr. Atkins, for having rolls with dinner.  Yes, the loan for the renovations was approved.  The film was faithful to the book, wasn’t it?  Well, cases like these are difficult to decide.

8.  Use commas to set off phrases associated with direct quotations.

9.  Between two closely related independent clauses.  Between two independent clauses linked with a transitional expression.  Between items in a series that already contains internal punctuation.

10. AAfter an independent clause to call attention to a list or a quote. GGo to the store and pick up the following: eggs, milk, cheese. BBetween two independent clauses if the second explains the first FFaith is like love: it cannot be forced.