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All about the Oxford comma, including when it may or may not be necessary.
In general, the comma shows that the words immediately before the comma are less closely or exclusively linked grammatically to those immediately after the comma than they might be otherwise. The comma performs a number of functions in English writing. It is used in generally similar ways in other languages, particularly European ones, although ...
Some people use the Oxford comma (also known as the Harvard or serial comma). This is a comma before "and" or "or" at the end of a series, regardless of whether it is needed for clarification purposes. For example: X, Y, and Z (with an Oxford comma) X, Y and Z (without an Oxford comma)
The question comma has a comma instead of the dot at the bottom of a question mark, while the exclamation comma has a comma in place of the point at the bottom of an exclamation mark. These were intended for use as question and exclamation marks within a sentence, a function for which normal question and exclamation marks can also be used, but ...
The comma-free approach is often used with partial quotations: The report observed "a 45% reduction in transmission rate". A comma is required when it would be present in the same construction if none of the material were a quotation: In Margaret Mead's view, "we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities" to enrich our culture.
The serial comma (for example the comma before and in "ham, chips, and eggs") is optional; be sensitive to possible ambiguity arising from thoughtless use or thoughtless avoidance, and be consistent within a given article. Avoid comma splices. Picture captions should not end in a full stop (a period) unless they are complete sentences.
"Avoid the so-called Oxford comma; say 'he ate bread, butter and jam' rather than 'he ate bread, butter, and jam'." The Economist Style Guide [49] "Do not put a comma before and at the end of a sequence of items unless one of the items includes another and. Thus 'The doctor suggested an aspirin, half a grapefruit and a cup of broth.
The comma operator separates expressions (which have value) in a way analogous to how the semicolon terminates statements, and sequences of expressions are enclosed in parentheses analogously to how sequences of statements are enclosed in braces: [1] (a, b, c) is a sequence of expressions, separated by commas, which evaluates to the last expression c, while {a; b; c;} is a sequence of ...