How To Use Commas On The Act

The remaining statements exemplify the use of a comma coupled with a coordinating conjunction to properly shift to the next point and indicate how the two clauses are related.

How to use commas on the act. Without it the aforementioned amazing concert lineup becomes a jumbled mess. The act test abides by the oxford comma rule. Allison enjoyed studying for art history her favorite class because she was able to learn about picasso and monet. As a rule of thumb if the phrase is longer than about four words use the comma. You can also use a comma with a shorter phrase when you want to emphasize it or add a pause for literary effect.

These 3 punctuation marks are probably the most confusing pieces of punctuation that you will encounter on test day. Note the following examples. Use two dashes or two commas. When should you use the. Colons semicolons and dashes.

It has nothing to do with the dash. Here s an overview of how they re used with examples. Luckily you only really need to focus on a few main rules in order to do well on the act. Commas can be a particularly tricky punctuation mark. You wanna memorize these conjunctions.

The oxford comma serves a key purpose here as florence and the machine is one musical act. Let s take a quick look at a sample act question to illustrate this rule. When an adverbial phrase begins a sentence it s often followed by a comma but it doesn t have to be especially if it s short. In summary commas contribute to the structure within a sentence consequently helping readers interpret the sentence s intent. So when you use a comma and what s called a fanboy this is an acronym to help you remember for and nor or but yet or so.

The comma is the most important punctuation mark to know on the act english test but you ll also need to know the comma s cousins. On the surface it looks like they should pair up but they shouldn t. The act constructed a sentence like this to trick you into thinking they need to pair up with each other. Class because she was able to learn. That s a pretty broad goal and there are a lot of different uses for commas.