Avoid These Comma Mistakes! Are You Using Commas Correctly in English?

hi i'm lisa how do you feel about your writing skills in english good spoken english is very important but writing is also very important and good writing means good punctuation for many years i used to teach academic writing classes at santa monica college one of the main things that my students struggled with was using the comma correctly i will give you a test which will check your knowledge of the usage of the comma in english and why do i say in english because comma rules can be different in different languages if your native language is not english maybe you learned different rules about the comma and if you are a native speaker of english this video will help you also i know that some native speakers watch my videos this is an opportunity for you to review those rules that you learned maybe in high school a long time ago maybe you forgot some of these rules [Music] let me tell you about how this test will work for each question you will see two sentences sentence a and sentence b sentence a has the commas and sentence b does not and i want you to decide which one is correct a or b i will give you some time to think and then i will give you the answer and i will teach you the rule anytime you would like to skip to the next question you can follow the time markers that i wrote below that way if you don't want to listen to the whole explanation you don't have to okay let's look at the first sentence the students who study hard for the test will get an a which one is correct do we need the two commas or not what do you think is it a or b the correct answer is b no commas let me teach you the rule whose study for the test is called a relative clause we have two different types of relative clauses we have restrictive relative clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses when a relative clause is restrictive that means it is essential to the meaning of the sentence so let's take out who study hard for the test and now the sentence is the students will get an a has the meaning changed yes it has not all students will get an a only the students who study hard for the test will get an a therefore the relative clause is essential to the meaning and that's considered a restrictive relative clause in that case we do not use commas and relative clauses begin with the following words that are called relative pronouns who whose whom that and which let's look at question number two it's similar to question number one which one is correct a or b my uncle who is a dentist lives in new york is it a or b commas or no commas if we take out the relative clause who is a dentist and we say my uncle lives in new york the sentence still makes sense so the correct answer is a we would put those commas however there is an exception what if i have two uncles one uncle is a dentist and one uncle is a doctor in that case you might be confused about which uncle i'm talking about if i want to clarify that i'm talking about the uncle who is a dentist and not the uncle who's a doctor then we would not have the commas because now it's a restrictive relative clause it's essential to the meaning of the sentence you need that information to know what i'm talking about so that means no commas with that sentence before we go on to the next question i'd like to give you a few more example sentences to make sure you understand this concept let's look at this sentence los angeles which is a big city has a lot of traffic which is a big city is just additional information in describing los angeles it's just extra information therefore we must have the two commas look at the next sentence with the relative clause the dress that she wore last night looked beautiful on her the information and the relative claws is essential to the meaning the dress that she wore last night looked beautiful on her but not all the dresses looked beautiful on her maybe just the one that she wore last night we need that information i think you understand it now right let's go to question number three this example has a different rule related to commas which one is correct a or b i couldn't call you yesterday because i was studying for a test do we need a comma before the word because that's a common question that my students have asked me in the past do you know the answer is it a or b to keep it simple i will explain it this way when because is in the middle of a sentence no comma but now let me explain it in grammatical terms let's look at the word because because is a subordinating conjunction subordinating conjunctions follow specific comma rules before i teach you that rule let me give you a list of other subordinating conjunctions after although as long as before even if even though if until when whenever and now let me explain to you how they work let's go back to our original sentence i couldn't call you yesterday because i was studying for a test let's look at the first part i couldn't call you yesterday that's a complete sentence that's also called an independent clause the sentence can stand alone it's a complete sentence but look at the next part because i was studying for a test that's not a complete sentence that's called a dependent clause it's dependent it's not independent so when we have an independent clause followed by a subordinating conjunction such as because or when or even if or after or before and then we have a dependent clause no comma before the subordinating conjunction i will give you a few more examples in just a minute but first i want you to look at question number four and tell me if you think it needs a comma this time we change the order of the same sentence because i was studying for a test i couldn't call you do we need a comma here what do you think is it a or is it b it's a yes we do need a comma so when the subordinating conjunction is in the beginning of a sentence then we put a comma after the dependent clause let's practice that a little bit more let's look at these examples because i was hungry after i woke up whenever i think about it these are unfinished thoughts we have something else to say after that this is when we need a comma with the words i gave you with the subordinating conjunctions let's finish those sentences now because i was hungry comma i got something to eat but what happens if we change the word order around what if we put i got something to eat in the front that's the independent clause in that case no karma i got something to eat because i was hungry no comma after i woke up what happened after i woke up after i woke up i made a few phone calls and replied to my messages we need a comma there and now let's change the word order and let's start that sentence with i made a few phone calls i made a few phone calls and replied to my messages after i woke up no comma and the third example whenever i think about it that's an unfinished thought what happens whenever i think about it i get sad we have a comma there and of course if we change that sentence around no comma i get sad whenever i think about it i think you understand it now right you should learn this list because the comma rule that we just learned applies to these words it's not a complete list but these are the most common subordinating conjunctions okay let's look at the next question in this question there's a different comma rule he likes to watch action movies and play video games do we need a comma before and what do you think is the correct answer a or b and is not a subordinating conjunction it's a coordinating conjunction and they follow different comma rules this is why comma rules can be so confusing we have subordinating conjunctions and we have coordinating conjunctions with a coordinating conjunction in order to have a comma you need two separate independent clauses that means two separate sentences that can stand alone he likes to watch action movies is a sentence that could stand alone it's independent clause but how about the second part after and play video games is that a complete sentence no it's not and because it's not a complete sentence we should not put a comma there the correct answer is b no comma here is a list of the coordinating conjunctions that follow this rule and but for nor or yet and so these words follow different rules from the other list that you learned these are coordinating conjunctions not subordinating conjunctions let's look at some more examples of this will you buy an expensive car or an inexpensive car or is also a coordinating conjunction just like and an inexpensive car is not a complete sentence it's a dependent clause let's look at the next question he speaks english very well but he needs to work on his writing skills do we need a comma before but what's the correct answer a or b yes we do need a comma because this sentence contains two independent clauses we have the pronoun he two times in both clauses so the previous sentence that we had will you buy an expensive car or an inexpensive car if we change that sentence a little bit we can add the comma we can say will you buy an expensive car comma or will you buy an inexpensive car now we have two independent clauses two complete sentences and that's why we have a comma there is a little exception to this rule when both of the sentences are really short you don't have to put a comma for example we sang and we danced that's a very short sentence in that case you don't necessarily need a comma or i was hungry so i ate a comma is not necessary there even though both of those are complete sentences how did you do on the commerce test let me know in the comments below and by the way this is not a complete list of commas rules this is just a partial list i recommend that you learn all the rules related to commas but not only to commas but to all of the different punctuation marks such as the quotation mark and the exclamation point a colon a semicolon a dash a hyphen an asterisk parentheses all of these things are very important to know if you're going to be a good writer to help you learn the punctuation rules of english there are a couple of books that i recommend and i put them in the description below one of them is called the blue book of grammar and punctuation this book is written for native speakers of english however if you're an advanced student of english i'm sure this book will be useful to you it's not that difficult to understand my favorite part of the book is the second part that deals with punctuation rules in detail the first part deals with grammar but i actually believe that these grammar rules are not necessarily as difficult for non-native speakers as they are for native speakers but i think the book in general is quite good but its main strength is teaching punctuation rules really clearly and the second book is called the elements of style this is a classic millions of people have bought this book in the united states and it's helped them with their writing it's existed for many years it's a small book it's more like a manual that just gives lots of different rules it's filled with a lot of information that will definitely help you with your writing skills if you're already an advanced learner of english thanks for watching and keep practicing your english [Music] to get the two courses the american accent course and the 400 advanced words you must know for fluent english go to accurateenglish.com

Channel: AccurateEnglish

Views: 168,184

Keywords: english writing, writing skills, punctuation, punctuation rules, english punctuation, comma, how to use the comma, comma rules, commas, period or comma, academic writing, advanced english, editing, rules for commas, Lisa Mojsin, American accent, fluent English, accurate english, correct english, punctuation test, writing test, TOEFL, TOEIC, ESL, english teacher

Id: 5jE9a_g31-Q

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021