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What do we do with "...my son Scott...?" Comma or not? This is the "essential/nonessential" dilemma, the hardest concept in all of punctuation. I would suggest that you read the entire chapter in...

The word "though," when it is alone in the middle of the sentence, is surrounded by commas. ...I think he knew, though, that this was the end. ...He was standing, though, near the door. At the en...

A frequent statement on FB by those asking for punctuation help: "The attorney keeps using run-on sentences." Just a note of clarification: Run-on sentences are created by bad punctuation. They ca...

A prepositional phrase beginning with "of" that represents where a person works or where he is from and that follows a proper noun takes commas around it. Other prepositional phrases do not take th...

...We were there, know what I mean, with them, know what I mean, when one of them drew a gun, know what I mean, and began to threaten everyone. Happy punctuating! Margie

When someone has a language "glitch" and uses a word or phrase over and over, that word or phrase is surrounded by commas. ...He was, like, on the, you know, edge that day. ...The company, like, y...

This is an email question from yesterday. ...…Okay. Now, you told us, Ms. Ryan -- right? -- at one point you got up you left the room and you went to the bathroom. Is that right? Amid all the o...

When there is punctuation to get into quotes, there must be punctuation to get out. In other words, if there is a comma before the quote, there has to be some mark of punctuation at the end of the ...

Punctuate a fragment that stands for a complete thought the same way you would punctuate the complete thought that it stands for. ...Q Where was he?...A At the beach. He was alone....A He was at t...