Tools of My Trade

I'm sitting on the sofa slowly reading over and scoring the handwritten portion of today's quiz. My students are required to write the Eight Comma Rules and also one example for each rule. I'm always pleased when I read one that reveals the student has studied and hits each of the eight right on the bulls-eye. Such papers are easy to grade. "Frustrating" would be the best description of the papers that reveal students who have obvious guessed at the rules.

I tell my students on the very first day of the semester that they will have to write these rules for the first quiz which will happen on the fifth week of the semester. Approximately half of my students must not believe me; because half of them earned dreadful scores.

Here are the eight rules:
Rule #1 Put a comma before one of the “fan boys” (coordinating conjunctions) when they connect two independent clauses (for, and, nor, but or, yet, so).
Rule #2 Use a comma to separate items in a series, date, or address.
Rule #3 Use a comma after an introductory word, phrase, or dependent clause that begins a sentence.
Rule #4 Put commas around the name of a person spoken to.
Rule #5 Put commas around interrupters (however; therefore, etc.)
(Remember interrupters are inside of one, and only one, sentence.)
Rule #7 Use commas to enclose a direct quotation within a sentence.
Rule #8 Use a comma to clarify the meaning of a sentence.

Student essays are usually littered with comma errors, so the students who learn these eight rules and quickly apply them to their own writing improve their documents immensely.

So there's a bit from my day as an writing instructor in the English department at the local community college.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol