f you're following the conventions of North American Academic English, you can use a comma:
- To join 2 independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020, p. 155; e.g., and, but, or, for, nor, so). Place the comma before the conjunction e.g., the peacocks at RRU are beautiful, and they can usually be found meandering around campus.
- After an introductory phrase, prepositional phrase, or dependent clause (APA, 2020, p. 155) e.g., regardless of their beauty, the peacocks’ early morning vocalizations make them unpopular with students staying in residence.
- To separate non-essential elements from a sentence (APA, 2020, p. 155). Non-defining relative clauses (also known as non-restrictive clauses) begin with a relative pronoun (e.g., who, whom, which, there). E.g., the peacocks, who have been residents at RRU since the 1960s, share the campus with other wildlife.
- After a transition. E.g., the peacocks may be noisy; however, RRU wouldn’t be the same without them.
- To separate elements in a series. The APA Style rules require the serial comma in a list of three or more items (APA, 2020, p. 155), which is the comma that appears after the second-to-last item in a list. E.g., the colours in peacocks’ feathers include blue, green, copper, and black.
- Between coordinate adjectives (i.e., adjectives that are equal and reversible). E.g., the quiet, frequent clucks of mother peahens to their chicks keep the chicks from wandering too far astray.
- Before a quotation. E.g., The visitor asked, “Why did the peacock cross the road?”. The RRU staff member replied, “Your guess is as good as mine; peacock logic is mysterious”.
- "To set off the year in exact dates in the text or in a retrieval date . . . however, when only a month and year appear in the text, do not use a comma" (APA, 2020, p. 155). E.g., March 25, 2015.
- "To separate groups of three digits in most numbers of 1,000 or more" (APA, 2020, p. 155). E.g., 5,000 or 500,000
One last point: do not use a comma before a defining relative clause (also known as a restrictive or essential clause) (APA, 2020, p. 156):
- The peacocks that walk slowly are tame and used to human company (“that walk slowly” defines or restricts which peacocks are being referred to).
Reference
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
