Category: Technical Communications

Answers to last week's challenge on commas are brought to you by Joanne Chantelau Hofmeister. Other respondents with all answers correct were Roslyn G. Hager, Anne Goldenberger, Douglas Daniel Blackley, and Vera Sytch. And, yes, number 4 was correct as written, meaning that technically the instructions should have mentioned that. Nevertheless, 55% of respondents answered correctly.

Number 2 elicited the most errors. Look carefully at that opening noun phrase, "The president of Super Simplistic Solutions." Because of the word the, this phrase completely identifies the one individual who is the subject of the sentence. His name is then grammatically nonessential. Contrast that with number 6, where the job title is used in front of the name without the word a or the. For that reason, the job title does not stand alone as a noun fully identifying the subject. Instead, it is merely an adjective modifying the proper noun George Baker. But be careful. Sometimes the word the or the word a may be present, but the opening phrase still does not narrow the discussion to one specific noun. Check out the examples in this week's new challenge on essential versus nonessential appositives.

Answers to Last Week's Challenge: Add or subtract commas to correctly punctuate these sentences

1. "Another electrolyte, potassium, works with sodium to generate the electrical current necessary for muscle function."
2. The president of Super Simplistic Solutions, Biff Bifferson, opened the competition to clients as well as staffers.
3. A nurse's aide, Jon Boxco, greets each patient at the desk.
4. "Important for bones and teeth, this element is even more essential in cell physiology."
5. Ramakrishna Sing, a research associate at the National University, created a new way to purify water.
6. Administrative associate George Baker set up the new device.
7. Built just a year ago, the senior center is already full.

This Week's Grammar Challenge: Essential versus nonessential appositives

1. The doctor standing by the podium Dr. Jasper Caspar is a specialist in joint repair.
2. A very important concept grouping will be discussed in the next section.
3. ABC Senior Director Sing will speak at the all-hands meeting.
4. The one topic we should not ignore reproducibility is the very one we most often neglect.
5. The very important insect drosophila melanogaster is the topic of our next lesson.
6. This insect's main predator the predaceous wasp cannot alone control the population.

When adding a job title or description before or after someone's name, you have to decide whether you need commas. You need two commas if you have inserted a nonessential additional description after your noun. If you feel that your first word or noun in the sentence is specific enough that the reader needs no further information in order to identify it, then a subsequent interruption to give further description should be surrounded by commas, like this:

My only child, Jim, is applying to colleges right now.

The words "my only child" are specific enough to fully identify who I am talking about. They narrow my discussion to one human being. Giving his name is merely additional, nonessential information. The term nonessential refers to whether the information is needed in order to narrow the discussion down to the one person or thing I am talking about.

My cousin Ruth called one day last week.

The name Ruth is essential in this sentence, because I have more than 20 cousins. In my family, the words "my cousin" do not fully do the job of narrowing the discussion down to one person. It doesn't matter whether my readers know that–the fact that I know it is enough. I know that the specific name is needed for precise identification of the person I am talking about.

The File menu, located at the upper left of the screen, contains the Share command.

Here, the words "the File menu" fully identify the exact part of the software being discussed. The additional description "located at the upper left of the screen" is not essential for precisely identifying which screen item you mean.

If you start your sentence with a job title right before a name, don't put a comma between the job title and the name, and don't put one after the name, either:

Instructional designer Bob Henderson will show us how to plan our lesson.

But if you put the word a or an before the job title, meaning you are using it generically, then you do need the commas:

An instructional designer, Bob Henderson, will show us how to plan our lesson.

If you start your sentence with a description that applies to the subject of the sentence, use just one comma to separate the introductory description from the beginning of the sentence:

Built just last year, the parking structure was already overcrowded.

Challenge: Add or subtract commas to correctly punctuate these sentences

1. "Another electrolyte, potassium works with sodium to generate the electrical current necessary for muscle function."
2. The president of Super Simplistic Solutions Biff Bifferson, opened the competition to clients as well as staffers.
3. A nurse's aide Jon Boxco, greets each patient at the desk.
4. "Important for bones and teeth, this element is even more essential in cell physiology."
5. Ramakrishna Sing, a research associate at the National University  created a new way to purify water.
6. Administrative associate, George Baker, set up the new device.
7. Built just a year ago the senior center is already full.