{"id":373,"date":"2012-01-04T00:21:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T00:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2012\/01\/04\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-5\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:19","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:19","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>We continue our look at the mark of punctuation that puts music into your manuscript. Here are the last five rules for comma placement:<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div><strong>Comma Rule #16: <\/strong>A comma follows the salutation in a personal letter or a complimentary close of your correspondence.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Example:  Dear John, I&#8217;m leaving you. Sincerely, Jane Doe.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>*Note business correspondence requires a colon following the salutation.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div><strong>Comma Rule #17:<\/strong> Used as a parenthetical statement, phrases that contrast or add to a sentence are set off with commas.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Example:  John was a little sad, if not downright depressed, that Jane left him.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div><strong>Comma Rule #18:<\/strong> In a sentence of dialogue separated by a tag, use commas to separate the direct quotation from the tag.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Example:  I wish I knew,&#8221; Mary said, &#8220;what John planned to do about Jane.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div><strong>Comma Rule #19:<\/strong> When the same verb is used side by side in a sentence, a comma should separate the two uses.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Example:  Whoever left, left before the show was over.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>However, sometimes when two verbs are used, one is a helping verb to the other. A comma should not be used.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Example:  If he had had the ear muffs last night, he might not be sick today.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div><strong>Comma Rule #20<\/strong>:  On occasion, a writer must determine if they want a pause to set off a verb phrase. The comma depends upon the importance of the verb phrase or how it sounds to the author&#8217;s ear.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Example:  Mary bought a beautiful gown for the formal dance, hoping that John would forget about Jane.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Once an author learns and practices the rules of comma usage, they can more easily break those rules to add style to their manuscript. As always, though, there is a caution. Style comes from breaking the rules when it best suits the situation. In other word, when breaking rules, the old adage, &#8220;less is more,&#8221; is very appropriate.<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>Happy Editing!<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We continue our look at the mark of punctuation that puts music into your manuscript. Here are the last five rules for comma placement: Comma Rule #16: A comma follows the salutation in a personal letter or a complimentary close of your correspondence. Example: Dear John, I&#8217;m leaving you. Sincerely, Jane Doe. *Note business correspondence [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}