Rules for Comma Usage. Use a comma to separate the elements in a series (three or more things), including the last two. "He hit the ball, dropped the bat, and ran to first base. " You may have learned that the comma before the "and" is unnecessary, which is fine if you're in control of things. However, there are situations in which, if you don't use this comma (especially when the list is complex or lengthy), these last two items in the list will try to glom together (like macaroni and cheese). Using a comma between all the items in a series, including the last two, avoids this problem. Use a comma + a little conjunction (and, but, for, nor, yet, or, so) to connect two independent clauses, as in "He hit the ball well, but he ran toward third base. " Contending that the coordinating conjunction is adequate separation, some writers will leave out the comma in a sentence with short, balanced independent clauses (such as we see in the example just given).
We visited Hartford, Connecticut, last summer. Grammar Bytes! Grammar Instruction with Attitude. Grammar Bytes! Grammar Instruction with Attitude. Grammar Bytes! Presents :: Get Your Verb On! GrammarBytes's channel. Discourse Markers. In your writing, you will want to spend some time ensuring that your work has a sense of variety. In order to do this, you might think of the following : Use conjunctions as well as/instead of sentence connectors. A conjunction is a word like and, but, etc, which is used to join two ideas together into a complex sentence. Unlike sentence connectors such as 'However', etc, a conjunction cannot be used at the beginning of a sentence and must come at a mid-point, at the end of one clause and the beginning of another. It is usually possible to rephrase a pair of sentences that use a sentence connector by using a conjunction instead.
For example, instead of saying 'He studied French; however, his wife studied Physics', it might actually be more natural to say 'He studied English but his wife studied Physics'. Similarly, instead of saying 'English is hard; therefore, one must spend a lot of time practising it', we can say: 'English is hard so one must spend a lot of time practising it.'