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The difference between an Oxford comma and a regular comma is that an Oxford comma refers to the final comma in a series that would come before the last conjunction of a sentence.
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 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.
In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, [1] [2] speech marks, [3] quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks, are punctuation marks placed on either side of a word or phrase in order to identify it as a quotation, direct speech or a literal title or name.
Commas are placed between items in lists, as in They own a cat, a dog, two rabbits, and seven mice. Whether the final conjunction, most frequently and, should be preceded by a comma, called the serial comma, is one of the most disputed linguistic or stylistic questions in English: They served apples, peaches, and bananas. (serial comma used)
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 end of a sentence. ¶ Pilcrow: Paragraph mark, paragraph sign, paraph, alinea, or blind P: Section sign ('Silcrow') ⌑ Pillow (non-Unicode name) 'Pillow' is an informal nick-name for the 'Square lozenge' in the travel industry. The generic currency sign is superficially similar | Pipe (non-Unicode name) (Unicode name is "vertical bar ...
The lack of a comma suggested one meaning, while the omission of the conjunction or before "packing" and the fact that the Maine Legislative Drafting Manual advised against use of the serial comma suggested another. It said "Although authorities on punctuation may differ, when drafting Maine law or rules, don't use a comma between the ...