Everyday Editing

Don’t Leave Me Hanging!

Use of the Comma After an Introductory Element

AAAWWUBBIS!

• If I were a movie, I’d probably have to kill off my father in the first scene.

• --Paul Acampora, Defining Dulcie (2006)

AAAWWUBBIS• After• Although• As• When• While• Until• Before• If • Since

AAAWWUBBIS!

• If my dad were a TV star, he’d be Ward Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver. He always had to help me see everything about my mistakes. At least that’s how it seemed to me.

AAAWWUBBIS

• When an AAAWWUBBIS is the first word of a sentence, it causes a comma.

• AAAWWUBBIS’s are regular comma causers.

• If a sentence starts with an AAAWWUBBIS, you’re probably going to need a comma somewhere in the sentence.

AAAWWUBBIS

• Although the women’s faces are shown from the front, their noses appear in profile to the left.

• After reading twelve pages, she looked to the end to see how many more pages there were to go: more than two hundred.

• As the candy cools, the pressurized gas is released and shatters the candy.

AAAWWUBBIS

• When you first gave us this assignment, I thought it was lame.

• While I have problems feeling part of my family, I do feel a kinship with our house.

• Until the sixteenth century, couples could be married outside a church and without a priest.

AAAWWUBBIS

• Because Ramona wanted to save the best for last, she ate the center of her sandwich – tuna fish – and poked a hole in her orange so she could suck out the juice.

• Before you sit down to dinner, make sure you wash your hands.

AAAWWUBBIS• If I stand in a room and no one sees me, it’s like I

was never there at all.• Since the ink wasn’t waterproof, it turned his teeth

blue.• Remember that the AAAWWUBBIS has to be the

FIRST word of a sentence to cause a comma.• We don’t need a comma when the AAAWWUBBIS

comes later in the sentence.

AAAWWUBBIS

• Combine the following sentences using an AAAWWUBBIS or subordinating conjunction in your combined sentences:

• He ate dinner.

• Then he headed out to see Phil.

• Phil was at his house.

Sentence combining using AAAWWUBBIS

• Hector put on his shirt.• Hector slung the guitar over his shoulder.• The guitar belonged to him.• Hector was surprised at how well he had turned out.• Rowanne was surprised at how well he had turned

out.

AAAWWUBBIS

• The original sentence read:• After he ate dinner, he headed out to Phil’s house.

When Hector put on his shirt and slung his guitar over his shoulder, he and Rowanne were both surprised at how well he had turned out.

Identify what has changed as each sentence is revealed.

• When the web is finished, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web.

• When the web is finished, the spider waits for insects to fly into it’s web.

• When the web is finish, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web.

• When the web is finished, the spider wait for insects to fly into its web.

• When the web is finished, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web.

• When the web is finished the spider waits for insects to fly into its web.