Using Comma in Other Conventional Contexts

1. Using Commas Around Direct Quotations

In most cases, use comma to set off a direct quotation from the identifying tag – the phrase that identifies the speaker (he said, she answered):

Emerson said to Thorau, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.”

For more detailed treatment of direct quotations, see Section “Quotation Marks” on page 37.

2. Using Commas between Names and Titles or Degrees

Use commas to set off a degree or title that follows a person’s name.

Barbara Kane, M.D., delivered the commencement address.

Note: If the title or degree precedes the name, however, no comma is required:

Dr.Koop, Prince Hamlet

But Jr., Sr., and III may be written without commas:

Sammy Davis Jr. started his singing career at age four.

Oliver III glanced across at me.

The comma is used after the last part of a proper name when the last part comes first:

Lunt, George D.

3. Using Commas in Dates and Addresses

Commas are used with full dates (month, day, and year) but are omitted with partial dates (month and year):

Gas had first been used by the Germans on October 27, 1914, when they fired a prototype of modern tear gas from an artillery near Ypres. (Paul Fussell)

In June 1985 Beth Henley was working on her fifth play.

India became independent on August 15, 1947.

Note: No comma is used to separate parts of a date that begins with the day:

The atomic bomb was first dropped on 6 August 1945.

Commas are required between most of the elements in place names and addresses:

Miami, Dade County, Florida

Writing Lab, University of California, Riverside

Note: Do not use a comma to separate a street number from the name of the street or to separate a state from zip code:

15 Amsterdam Avenue

5625 Waverly Avenue, La Jolla, California 92037

In a complete sentence, a comma must follow the last element of place names, addresses, or dates:

He shot himself twice, once in the chest and then in the head, in a police station in Washington, D.C., with the cops looking on. (Red Smith)

July 4, 1776, was the day the Declaration of Independence was signed.

4. Using Commas with Greetings, Closings, and Large Numbers

Commas are used after the greeting in a friendly or informal letter, and after the closing in a letter of any kind:

Dear Mary, Sincerely,

Dear Uncle Paul, Yours truly,

Note: In business letters, always use a colon, not a comma after the greeting.

Commas are used to mark groups of three digits in large numbers, counting from the right:

Antarctica is 5,400,000 square miles of ice-covered land.

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Use any commas needed with dates, place names, addresses, and large numbers.

1. The earthquake of October 9 1871 whose epicenter was near Wilmington Delaware delivered what for this area was the most intense earth shock in historical times. (John McPhee)

2. I was in New Orleans when Louisiana seceded from the Union, January 26 1861 and I started north the next day. (Mark Twain)

3. She lost her father William Thomas Bishop eight months after her birth on February 8 1911 in Worcester Massachusetts. (Robert Giroux on Elizabeth Bishop)

4. On the morning of June 5 1962 the Queen Elizabeth brought my wife and me from Cherbourg to New York for the film premiere of Lolita. (Vladimir Nabokov)

5. Miss Davis was born on April 2 1908 in Lowell Massachusetts in a gray clapboard house built on Chester Street by her grandfather Favor, who was descended from fighting Huguenots and was himself a belligerent abolitionist. (Janet Planner on Bette Davis)

6. The new assembly plant cost $7 525 000 by the time it was completed.

Writer’s Tips: Use Commas to Prevent Misreading or to Mark an Omission

In some sentences words may run together in unintended and confusing ways unless a comma separates them. A comma is used in such sentences even though no rule requires one:

Confusing: Soon after she left town for good. [A short introductory phrase does not require a comma, but clarity requires it in this sentence.]

Revised : Soon after, she left town for good.

Commas are used to indicate omissions within a sentence:

To err is human; to forgive, divine. [Note that is, the verb omitted, is the same as the one stated.]

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