Q. I write professional resumes, and I have a question about the use of a comma in a sentence with including. My proofer has begun inserting a comma prior to including followed by a list: “Managed a variety of projects, including joint, combined, and contingency exercises.”
Should this comma be omitted?
A. Many readers write to ask whether the word including always requires a comma in front of it, but there’s no simple answer. Each instance must be decided
individually, because a comma changes the meaning.
I invited all the clubs including the biker chicks and pit tootsies.
I invited all the clubs, including the biker chicks and pit tootsies.
The first sentence is ambiguous; it might mean that I invited only clubs that include chicks and tootsies among their members.
The second sentence makes clear that I invited all clubs, regardless of membership, and that this included the chicks’
and tootsies’ clubs. In your text you need a comma if the chunk after including is nonrestrictive (that is, if some of the projects included joint exercises, some included combined, some both, etc.). Without
a comma, including becomes restrictive, and the implication is that every project included joint, combined, and contingency exercises.
You can read more about restriction by typing restrictive into the search box at the CMOS Q&A site.
Q. If you write “In the opening of Raymond Chandler’s 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely . . . ,” ought there to be a comma after novel, as it was his only novel published that year and so what follows is a nonrestrictive appositive? Or does that seem too clunky?
A. The comma is correct, but it can be considered optional in contexts where a writer isn’t necessarily
privy to the facts that would determine restriction, and where, as you point out, the extra comma would be awkward.
Q. An author of an article I am copyediting asked me to restore the commas I had deleted in the following sentence: “Most
of my nightmares are a process of working out a deeper objectivity about, and unity with, what God would have me do.”
I do not mind the two commas in this sentence, although I prefer it without. However, I know the proofreader will object.
Can you refer me to a rule I can cite to get either the author or the proofreader to back down?
A. Yes. When commas are optional and the author wants them in, even after the copy editor has suggested taking them out, the
copy editor should leave them in. The proofreader doesn’t get to decide. Simply write “stet
commas, per author” in the margin.
Q. I have noticed in e-mails that people who want to be informal begin with “Hi Fred.”
I have also seen the salutation as “Hi, Fred.” Since e-mail is an electronic letter,
is it OK to simply begin with “Hi Fred,”? The other way seems a bit awkward.
A. This isn’t so much a matter of Chicago style as personal style. Is it OK to treat e-mail as an informal
form of communication with relaxed rules and etiquette? It’s probably wise to use the same judgment
you use in writing paper letters to people. If you’re writing to a client or your boss, follow the conventions
of letter writing. In this case, that means putting a comma before the direct address (Hi, Fred). “Dear
Fred” is not the same grammatically, and it takes no comma. (Note also that “Hi,
Fred” and “Dear Fred” are not formal forms of address, with
or without the comma.)
Q. Must a comma always precede the phrase “such as”? If not, what is the rule for
when there should be a comma?
A. You need a comma if what follows is nonrestrictive. Our Q&A has devoted much space to this issue; if you type “restrictive”
into the search box, you can access the relevant questions and answers.
Restrictive: I love moments such as those. [I don’t love all moments; this tells which moments I do
love.]
Unrestrictive: Don’t you love that lucky, jazzy feeling, such as when you meet someone cute or find
money in your pocket? [I love that feeling, unrestricted; here are some examples of it.]
(And thanks to questions such as yours, we now treat this specific question in CMOS; see 6.27 in the sixteenth edition.)
Q. I’ve got a run-in list in which one of the items is a quoted question. The author put the comma after
the closing quotation mark, which looks odd, but so does no comma at all. Any suggestions? The sentence: She can ask herself,
“Why?”, formulate her own response, and see which option it closely matches.
A. Put the comma inside the quotation marks. Although Chicago style doesn’t call for the comma, many of
us here ignore that rule, because it so often seems wrong.
Q. My editor and I disagree about comma placement in this sentence. I added the comma, but he says it’s
not necessary. Your opinion, please? “The screen design includes functional elements like text-entry
boxes and list boxes, and stylistic elements like graphics and multimedia.” Thanks!
A. Your editor objects because it’s a “rule” not to put a
comma between two elements making up a compound object. The comma is needed in your sentence, however, because your two elements
are themselves compound. Without the comma, the reader is left to navigate some pretty rickety syntax: X includes A like B
and C and D like E and F. Readability trumps the rule, so the comma should stay.
Q. Some editors at my office believe the word so should always have a comma after it when it begins a sentence. (“I am a clumsy person. So, I try not
to wear white on days when I will drink coffee.”) I believe so should be treated like and or but; they think it should be treated like thus. Yet they don’t use the comma if the clause is in the second half of a sentence. Is the comma optional,
never allowed, or allowed only in certain situations?
A. So that begins a sentence or clause does not take a comma unless a parenthetical phrase or clause follows, and even then it’s
sometimes optional: So, in light of his threats, I had to hide the chocolate. Sometimes a writer hears a pause after so, and if a writer really wants us to pause, then it’s hard to deny him a comma. But if a pause is that
important, perhaps an ellipsis or dash is called for.
Q. Your opinion, please, of the comma in this sentence: “The difference, is affiance.”
It is a commercial tagline, so all bets may be off, but one of us has the nagging feeling that there may be a reason for that
comma buried in grammar rules of yore. Another of us wondered if the construction is related to “What
it is, is football.” Both of us hope you can help sort things out.
A. Sorry—I can’t think of a single reason for that comma. In your football sentence,
the comma separates the potentially confusing “is is.” In your tagline, the comma
separates a very simple subject from a very simple predicate, and that has long been verboten by the punctuation police.
Q. Prepositional phrases beginning sentences. No longer followed by a comma?
A. For starters, it isn’t one-rule-fits-all. After a short phrase a comma usually isn’t
necessary. After one that’s especially long or whose syntax involves more complex elements, it’s
usually a good idea. But as you can see from these sentences, whenever a pause is intended, a comma does the trick. See CMOS 6.36 for more examples.
Chicago Style Q&A: New Questions and Answers
