Revising and Editing

Reconsidering your ideas, examining your paragraphs, checking your style and grammar.

Commas after Items in Series and Lists

When you have lists of words or phrases, you need commas to help you keep them separate.

Commas and Items in a Series

If you are using nouns, verbs, or adjectives in a series or list of three or more items, you always need a comma and a conjunction. If there are only two items, you do not use a comma.

Example:

	Bob, Fred and Sam decided that they would go to the movies.
	Bob, Fred, and Sam decided that they would go to the movies.

The second sentence is correct because the comma separates each of the three items in the series.

Tip

Do not add a comma after the last item in the list. This is unnecessary and causes a pause that isn’t needed.

Commas and Coordinate Adjectives

When you have adjectives that each modify the noun separately (called “coordinate adjectives”), use commas between them. If they are modifying each other (called “cumulative adjectives”), do not use commas.

Example 1:

	The cold gray sky looked as if it were going to snow.
	The cold, gray sky looked as if it were going to snow.

The second sentence is correct because both adjectives, cold and gray, modify the noun sky.

Example 2:

	The dark, chocolate cake was delicious.
	The dark chocolate cake was delicious.

The second sentence is correct because the adjective dark is modifying the other adjective chocolate and not the noun cake.

Source

Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s Reference. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.