hi everyone welcome back to my channel learn academic english where i teach intermediate
and advanced level lessons for english learners who want to be successful in school and work
today's video is going to help you with both of those things for your writing
i'm continuing my series about sentences and i'll leave a link to that series above
about the rules of commas there are 10 basic rules of commas that everybody needs to know
this is especially important if you use english in writing so you might be thinking well i already
know how to use commas because i use commas in my native language but the problem is that languages
have different rules for using commas so if you're an english learner you need to know these rules
and even if english is your native language this is a great place to get a refresher before we
begin i'd like to remind you to please give this video a like leave a comment and subscribe if you
haven't already if you find this video helpful and make sure that you check the description box below
because i always leave a question that you can use to practice with me and i have a handout of these
rules so in today's video i'm going to give you a bunch of example sentences and all of the examples
are on the topic of stress so let's look at the first rule of commas which is to use a comma
between two clauses when you use fanboys okay what are fanboys fanboys are coordinating conjunctions
and this is when we are making a compound sentence by joining two independent clauses with one of the
coordinating conjunctions and if you want to learn more about compound sentences i have a
video all about that remember that fanboys are the conjunctions for and nor but or yet and so and we
use these when we combine two independent clauses like this for example independent clause and
independent clause we're going to use a comma there before the conjunction
let's look at the example modern life has many conveniences but people report more stress than
ever before this is a compound sentence because the first clause has a subject and a verb and
the second clause has a subject and a verb so each of these is an independent clause we use
a coordinating conjunction to combine them and we need to put the comma now it's important to know
that sometimes you can see some differences in this rule there are some comma rules that are more
flexible than other rules and this is one of them if the clauses are especially short
we will often skip this comma and keep in mind that if there is no subject over here
that's actually not a compound sentence and you're not going to put a comma there
all right let's go to the second rule which is to separate items in a series what is a series
a series is when you have three or more things like three nouns or three verbs for example stress
can affect diet sleep and mood so how many things do we have we have three of them they are nouns
this is a series so we're going to use a comma before each one including before the last one this
is called an oxford comma there is another type of rule where this comma is not used but usually in
school or more formal writing we are going to use this comma it is common sometimes in magazines or
other type of writing to see this comma omitted but again in formal writing especially for school
you should use this last comma as well let's look at another example stress can hinder sleep
alter your mood and cause illness here we have three things we have three
verb phrases hinder sleep alter your mood cause illness and again we're going to use the comma
to separate the three parts okay let's look at the next rule to separate two similar adjectives
these are called coordinate adjectives this is a tricky rule that needs its own video devoted
to it but basically you're going to think that if you have two adjectives that are of a similar
type then you're gonna use a comma to separate them let me show you an example to make it clear
meditation is an easy useful technique to reduce stress okay here we have two adjectives
and usually we don't use and to separate those adjectives we would usually use just this comma
this is quite different from other ways that we use commas because usually if we have only two
things we don't use a comma to combine them but here we do so here these coordinate adjectives
are both describing technique and they are like they are basically similar types of adjectives
what would be a different type of adjective is if one of them was a nationality like
american or if one of them showed size like large but here these are both describing technique
and they are describing them kind of in a similar way that they're describing the quality
so we're going to use a comma to separate them okay we still have seven more rules to go so
let's look at the next one the next rule is to set off an introductory phrase or conjunctive adverb
for example in my humble opinion we don't do enough to prevent stress
according to research stress can be devastating for health however there are techniques to
reduce stress so all three of these are introducing the sentence they are phrases
or here we have a conjunctive adverb that goes at the beginning of the sentence and we use a comma
at the end number five in a complex sentence so a complex sentence has a dependent clause and an
independent clause joined with a comma and this is when the dependent clause comes first
what's a dependent clause it's a clause that begins with a subordinating conjunction like when
if before after etc because for example when i have time i meditate for five to ten minutes
here we need to put a comma at the end of the dependent clause
number six to set off a non-restrictive adjective clause or an a positive all right let's look at
the first one what is a non-restrictive adjective clause it is an adjective clause so it's a clause
it has a subject and a verb and it describes the noun that comes right before it okay
a non-restrictive adjective clause means that it's not essential to the sentence it adds extra
information it adds useful information but it's not necessary to the sentence in other words you
can take it out and the sentence would still make sense you would still know what we are
talking about for example meditation which can include visualizations encourages us to be in
the present moment okay so the subject here is meditation that's a noun and then we have this
adjective clause which can include so this is the subject of this little clause and this is the verb
visualizations okay this adjective clause describes meditation it gives more information
about meditation but if we take it out we will still understand the sentence so let's try to
take it out meditation encourages us to be in the present moment do we still know what this
is yes we do that means that this adjective clause is not necessary it's nice it gives
extra information that we like but it's not essential and for that reason we use commas and
you can think of the commas as like a little like hook that you can take the adjective clause out
or put it back in okay a similar idea is using an appositive and a positive is a noun phrase
that describes or gives more information about a noun for example meditation and ancient practice
helps reduce stress so in this sentence meditation is the subject helps is the verb
and then we have this noun phrase that gives extra information about meditation
it's not a clause it's a noun phrase and it's not necessary to the sentence so again we use
commas to show that we can take it out or we can put it in moving on to rule number seven
to set off a direct address what does that mean a direct address is when you call someone's name
for example jenna stresses a problem for me too so if you're writing an email or you're
using this in writing you're going to use a comma after the person's name notice that this is also
an example of how we use a comma before the word to that's a separate rule that i didn't
include in today's video but we always use a comma before two at the end of a sentence all
right number eight to set off direct quotations the doctor stated stress management is a priority
so the punctuation with quotations is a little bit tricky we're going to use a comma
before the quotation so it's after the verb then we put out the quotation mark and then at the
end of the sentence we put the period inside the quotation mark at the end anyway comma goes here
rule number nine for numbers and dates if you have a number of more than three digits you're going to
use a comma to separate those digits for example 3500 you use a comma to separate the thousand and
hundred place however i have to tell you that with a number like this where there's just for example
one thousand two thousand three thousand just one digit here we often skip the comma but according
to the more formal rules we are going to use a comma there but we always put it for any longer
number be careful because in the united states we do not use a comma for decimals for example
4.9 we don't use a comma here this is used in some other places but in the u.s we use the period and
finally between the day and year we're going to use a comma for example today is march 24th 2022
okay and our last set of rules is about places we use a comma between the city and the state
and between the city and the country for example people in sacramento california
seem very stressed sacramento is the city and so we're going to put a comma before the state
if we also included the country we would put another comma and then the country and between the
elements of an address for example 108 main street so here's the number and the street then we put a
comma the city comma the state comma the country the only exception to this and this one is tricky
is that if we include the zip code it goes after the state and there's no comma so if we included
the zip code we would take out the comma and put the zip code there after the state i hope this
video about the comma rules in english helps you to feel more confident in your writing if you have
any questions as always let me know and i'll be happy to answer them make sure that you like this
video and leave a comment if you found it helpful and i'll see you back here next time take care