My Comp II teacher had a rule: for every three comma errors, you lose a letter grade. I hated that class. I made at least 7 comma errors on every paper for 8 or 9 weeks. I just couldn’t get it. I’m pretty sure I got a C, but I’ve blocked it out, so I can’t be sure. What I can be sure of is the careful attention I pay to commas in my writing now.

That class was a ridiculously painful—and annoying—experience, but one that I desperately needed if I was going to be successful in the writing I hoped to do. I think many students, even at the graduate level, could benefit from something similar. The two most common comma errors I see are:

  • Fear of the run-on: Some people seem to have been so traumatized by their primary school teacher’s overemphasis on run-on sentences that they start getting uncomfortable when a sentence gets long. After a certain number of words or lines commas will start to randomly appear.
  • A mark for a pause: Writing isn’t exactly like speaking, but we think like we talk and write as we think. Some people have been taught that, as a rule-of-thumb, if you’d pause in speech you should add a comma. But commas don’t mark pauses; they are structural markers.

These errors are easy to deal with.

First, don’t fear long sentences. A run-on sentence can be relatively short, and very long sentences can be structurally sound. It’s not the number of words that tells you a comma is necessary but the types of clauses and their placement. Get to know the situations when commas are necessary – after introductory clauses or words, when including nonessential information, lists of three or more items, etc. – and write that 60 word sentence with pride and confidence.

Second, remember that a comma isn’t a verbal mark. It’s meant to fill a structural role in a sentence, so use it that way. It also isn’t meant to save you from every moment of scribal uncertainty. In reality, you probably don’t need saving anyway.