One teacher said to Becky, “Put a comma wherever you would naturally pause.” She tried that, but another teacher said, “You have commas where you don’t need them.”
Becky didn’t think commas were important enough to worry about. Guesswork didn’t bother her—not until she heard about a company losing millions because of careless punctuation.
A comma placed before the conjunction was right in some cases, wrong in others. Or it might be right either way, depending on the intended meaning. How could she tell the difference? She needed to understand which rule applied where, and why.
Her first breakthrough came when she learned to use commas with clauses that explain, but not to use commas with clauses that define.
Becky considered one example: Students who drive carefully are less likely to have an accident. Leaving out the phrase “who drive carefully,” she had, Students are less likely to have accidents, which changed the meaning. Therefore, the phrase should not be set off with commas, because it defined which students were in the group.
In another example, she needed commas. Students, who are young and have much to learn, should pay attention in class. Leaving out the phrase, she had, Students should pay attention in class. The meaning of the main clause didn’t change, so she knew the phrase was information that explained a condition for all students.
One at a time, Becky studied all the punctuation rules and understood their purpose. Then, after quick-writing her first draft, she edited the manuscript, taking care to put commas in all the right places.
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