How to Make Commas Cool
In addition to my editing and writing work, I also teach writing skills classes to college students. It’s a pretty basic course, and covers all the things that they learned back in grade school, most of which have been long forgotten, if they were even paid attention to in the first place.
A recent lesson was on the use of commas. Since the semester is nearly over, it’s getting increasingly difficult to get through to the students and actually get them to care about things like correct usage of commas. I tried the standard “Let’s eat grandma,” which got a few chuckles, but I still didn’t feel like it drove the point home well enough. And then I remembered THIS article.
It has to do with a woman who fought a parking ticket and won. The reason she won was because the wording in an ordinance was unclear due to a missing comma! That did it! I guess it gives new meaning to the saying that money talks!
What do you think? Are commas a problem for you? If you need help with commas, or any other writing issues, feel free to reach out at the contact form here, and I can help get you through the tough stuff.