Grammar Help—when to use comma?
These are two example sentences. Why does the first sentence use a comma before and? Why does the second sentence not contain a comma before and? What are the rules for comma usage?
1. A majority of the states also have legislation allowing for a leave from employment for family or medical reasons, and many employers maintain private family leave plans for their workers.
2. In 2009, significant changes to the FMLA created new categories of leave for military caregivers and for qualifying exigencies that arise due to military service.
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Sentence 1 uses a comma because it is a compound sentence, the comma is used to separate the two clauses. You could remove the and leaving two complete sentences on their own.
Sentence 2 does use a comma because the and is linking two dependent ideas creating a form of a list.
First statement needs a comma before "and" because the part of the sentence after "and" has another subject. In the whole statement, there are two subjects, "a majority of the states" and "many employers". The word "and" kind of separates those two. So you can actually put a full stop instead of a comma if you want.
The second statement doesn't have a comma before "and" because the second part of the sentence is a direct continuation of the first part, i.e. "..for military caregivers and for qualifying exigencies.." You can't put a full stop instead of a comma there.
In sentence #1, the cooma is known as an Oxford comma. The sentence is about family leave. The first half is about state provision, the second half is about private provision. Two different subjects.
In sentence #2 the comma is not needed becuase the "and" separates two aspects of the same subject.
Hope this helps.
You leave out a comma if it introduces ambiguity, or leave it in if it better matches the spoken word among other reasons.
But its up to the individual and there are separate schools of thought for both sides of the argument.
In your example I'd say in the second there is no comma because it could possibly match both those reasons above.
1st statement: seperates two independent statements, I think.
2nd statement: use for prepostionary phrase (in), second statement is NOT indepedent and should not be seperated by comma.
Sorry. My Gramma died in 1971.