comma help!

[BreakfastSurreal]

my teacher left me a comment about my comment usage...i am reworking some of my paper and i want to know if this is proper comma usage.

"Earlier in the development of the poem, Kinnell uses an extended metaphor as he describes a flowering bud, which delineates and sets forth the timbre of the poem as previously described: (insert quoted text)."

 

[Trance97]

Everything looks good to me.

 

[TheOriginalJames]

"Kinnell uses an extended metaphor as he describes a flowering bud earlier in the development of the poem, which delineates and sets forth the timbre of the poem as previously described: (insert quoted text)."


It looks correct this way, but fuck if I remember anything from English class.

 

[sharpies]

"Earlier in the development of the poem, Kinnell uses an extended metaphor as he describes a flowering bud, which delineates and sets forth the timbre of the poem as previously described: (insert quoted text)."

I could be wrong but I don't think that you need the first comma. Normally a comma would block out a piece of text, & the sentence would still make sense, or it would be used to add/join pieces onto the sentence.

The last sentence is also an example of how a comma can be used for blocking.

Allan

 

[lemon]

my teacher left me a comment about my comment usage...i am reworking some of my paper and i want to know if this is proper comma usage.

"Earlier in the development of the poem, Kinnell uses an extended metaphor as he describes a flowering bud, which delineates and sets forth the timbre of the poem as previously described: (insert quoted text)."

i would write it as such:

"Using an extended metaphor in the earlier development of the poem, Kinnell describes a flowering bud which delineates and sets forth the poem's timbre: <insert quoted text>."

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

ty lemon I'm going with your suggestion!

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

what about this...is there a comma needed here or not? I never knew I had comma issues so now I'm being paranoid!

Animals are a blessing from God, and have never done anything to deserve any sort of judgment or mistreatment from humans.

 

[OUZBnd]

Clare, when you use cammas like your first example and this last example a good check to see if they are necessary is take out the section within the commas and see if the sentence still makes sense. If it doesn't, then take the commas out. Like your last one.


Animals are a blessing from God. That make sense, but since you use the word 'and' it can take the replace of a comma. So in this instance you dont need a comma.

In your first example,

Earlier in the development of the poem.....which delineates and sets forth the timbre of the poem as previously described: (insert quoted text)."

You don't need commas here either.

An example of where you would need them for instance 1.


Earlier in the development of the poem Kinnell, a famous writer, uses an extended metaphor as he describes a flowering bud which delineates and sets forth the timbre of the poem as previously described: (insert quoted text)."

You need comma's because you can remove the bolded text and the sentence still means the same thing

 

[alleycat]

for the most part, anything that is seperated by a comma, can be removed from the sentance without affecting the main point of the sentance.

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

i guess i have jsut always used commas as phrasing...somewhere along the line I must have had a teacher that preached commas left and right or something. I dunno I guess I just never thought I was wrong until my new teacher said soemthing, and funny how I got A's all those years without anyone noticing my fucked up comma useage! thanks ouz, im going back and editing my paper, its due in like 2 hours!

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

for the most part, anything that is seperated by a comma, can be removed from the sentance without affecting the main point of the sentance.

dont you mean...
or the most part, anything that is seperated by a comma can be removed from the sentance without affecting the main point of the sentance.

 

[Trance97]

You're going to fail, Clare.

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

anyone wanna proofread for me? Free rep!

 

[OUZBnd]

i would but i have a phone interview... well its suppose to be now, so i guess really soon. sorry

And thats classic Ali, you giving an example of correct comma usage and you did exactly what you said not to do (dont say you did it on purpose either )

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

just turned it in! omg thanks for the help guys, hopefully that should get me an A now. My last paper was an 88 and it pissed me off, but i worked a bit harder on this one.