How to Use the "Oxford Comma" in Technical & Business Writing
Oxford Comma in Technical and Business Writing is also known as
- Serial comma
- Series Comma
- Harvard Comma
It’s the comma before the “coordinating conjunction” (and “and” or “or”) in a list of three items.
For example:
“I love soup, steamed vegetables, and a good cigar in the evening.”
Why use the serial comma?
Not including the “Oxford comma” can create ambiguity and lead to inadvertent misunderstandings. That’s why I recommend you to use it.
For example:
“I’m afraid of no one but Karl, the taxman, and the Devil.”
Without comma it reads as though Karl is both the taxman and the Devil:
“I’m afraid of no one but Karl, the taxman and the Devil.”
Without any commas at all, it reads as though Karl is the taxman but not the Devil:
“I’m afraid of no one but Karl the taxman and the Devil.”
So it matters a lot where you place the comma in a series of three objects. You can make your sentence reads as though it has one, two, or three persons/objects, depending on how you use the commas.
For example:
“I started my company with contributions from Sharon, a generous investor, and my mother.”
ONE PERSON
“I started my company with contributions from Sharon, a generous investor and my mother.”
TWO PERSONS
“I started my company with contributions from Sharon, a generous investor, and from my mother.”
THREE PERSONS
“I started my company with contributions from Sharon, a generous investor, and my mother.”
NOTE: These are not the only ways to express one, two or three persons but just examples of one of the possibilities. For example, for three persons, you can also write the same sentence like this:
“I started my company with contributions from Sharon, and also from a generous investor, plus my mother.”
(Image courtesy of Sidharth Bhatia at Unsplash-dot-com)
