BK Writing Lab

 

Students should use commas to create more complex sentences. If you are able to include more complex sentences in your writing, you can make your essays and papers sound less choppy. 

There are a few specific strategies that students can use to produce such sentences.

First, a comma can be paired with an introductory phrase (Strausser 113).

The introductory phrase might be a present participial phrase (e.g., "Searching for an answer, the frantic students fumbled through the textbook."), or a past participial phrase (e.g., "Worried about her attendance, Janet rushed into the classroom late." (Strausser 113-114).

If you are going to use participles in this way, make sure that your participles are not "dangling." A dangling participle is one that does not properly correspond to the noun that it should be modifying in a sentence. For example, "Having no lunch, I shared my meal with my friend." The way this is worded makes it sound like I am the one who has no lunch, but what we meant is that it is my friend who lacked a lunch. Be careful with your wording!

Second, you can employ the comma along with a coordinating conjunction (Strausser 119). Using a comma in this way will permit you to combine shorter, simpler sentences together.

For example, consider the following:

I like to eat sushi. I do not like California rolls.

These sentences are very short and choppy; this is not satisfactory writing for a high school student. Instead, let's use a comma along with a coordinating conjunction to link the two sentences together:

I like to eat sushi, but I do not like California rolls. 

Important note: In sentences such as the one above, you cannot just use the comma without a coordinating conjunction. This is an extremely common error in student writing, but it is bad grammar. There is actually a term for this grammatical error: the comma splice. Here is what a comma splice would look like using the sentence above:

I like to eat sushi, I do not like California rolls.

The sentence would be okay with a semicolon (;) but using a comma without a coordinating conjunction produces a non-grammatical sentence. Make sure you are avoiding the comma splice in your writing!

Third, the comma can be paired with the semicolon to help writers avoid the needless repetition of phrases (Strausser 121).

Emily registered for English 4 Honors. Claire registered for AP Literature.

That sounds quite choppy because we have repeated too many of the same words. We can use the semicolon and the comma to improve this as follows:

Emily registered for English 4 Honors; Claire, AP Literature.

 

Works Cited

Strausser, Jeffrey. Barron's Painless Writing. 4th ed., Kaplan, 2021.

 

If you have any questions, send us an email at bkwritinglab@bishopkennyhs.org!

Image Credit: Comma by Andrea Greco from the Noun Project