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Use this checklist as a list of reminders while you are editing your paper.

  1. Sentence fragments
  2. Sentence sprawl
  3. Misplaced and dangling modifiers
  4. Faulty parallelism
  5. Unclear pronoun reference
  6. Incorrect pronoun case
  1. Omitted commas current page arrow
  2. Superfluous commas
  3. Comma splices
  4. Apostrophe errors
  5. Words easily confused
  6. Misspellings

7. Omitted commas

Use commas to signal nonrestrictive or nonessential material, to prevent confusion, and to indicate relationships among ideas and sentence parts.
Omitted commas How to fix them

When it comes to eating people differ in their tastes.

When it comes to eating, people differ in their tastes.

The Huns who were Mongolian invaded Gaul in 451.

The Huns, who were Mongolian, invaded Gaul in 451.

["Who were Mongolian" adds information but does not change the core meaning of the sentence because Huns were a Mongolian people; this material is therefore nonrestrictive or nonessential.]

For more information on commas see Commas: Punctuating Restrictive and Non-restrictive Modifiers and Punctuating Coordinating Conjunctions and Sentence Adverbs, or take one of the free grammar, style, and style classes offered by the Writing Center.

 

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