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In this grammar refresh, we're going to look at something called the serial comma or also known as

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the Oxford comma.

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Now, this has more to do with writing than it does speaking, but it is a good thing to know as it

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comes up a lot.

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And it's very useful for people who are in either academics or work in journalism or something like

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that, so it's always good to remind yourself and refresh about this idea.

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And so this Oxford comma or serial comma is when you use.

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A comma, you use a comma before the end or before the or at the end of a list.

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And now there are some.

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Style guide.

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That do not require this, but in my opinion, it's always good to use this method.

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It's always good to use this Oxford comma because it will remove any confusion.

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So, for example, the Chicago Manual of Style and the APA style, very popular writing styles they

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do require.

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This Oxford comma or this serial comma, but for example, the Associated Press Stylebook, they don't

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require, you know, depending on where you're working and what style guide your work uses or your school

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uses.

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So there will be different requirements.

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But I would say generally you should use it because it will help make your writing clear.

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But let's look at.

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Our example here, see what it's like with or without a serial comma, the first.

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Sentence is the sentences are the same, the only difference is.

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Serial comma or no serial number, the first one is without the Jeff is fond of basketball.

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Rugby and tennis.

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So we don't have a serial come to me when I read this.

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It sounds like rugby and tennis are together, right?

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Jack is fond of basketball, rugby in tennis.

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Rugby in tennis feel like one item in this list without that serial comma, but in the second example

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with the serial comma, Jeff is fond of basketball, rugby and tennis.

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Now it feels like I'm separating each one.

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So that's why that serial comma is important.

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And you can see how this can cause more confusion, right, with the sports and our examples in rugby

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and tennis, even though it sounds like it's one item, you know.

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We can still tell their different sports, but if this was food, if you said Jeff is fond of eggs.

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And chocolate, right?

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If I don't have that cereal, comma, between cheese and chocolate, it's going to make it sound like

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he likes cheese and chocolate together as one item.

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And so this cereal is very useful.

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I would recommend using them unless specifically told not to.

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In this Granma refresh, we're looking at quotation marks and specifically using quotation marks to

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cite someone's response.

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So we're going to use this to show that someone said something a.

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But we do not use this quotation marks if it's not a word for word response, right?

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We're not actually showing.

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What they said is so we're just giving their interpretation of their speech in our sentence.

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We're not going to use these quotation marks.

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But let's look at our examples, make this clear.

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In the first sentence, it says, and turned around and whispered.

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It can't be true.

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By bitterly.

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And so and I turned around and whispered, It can't be true by Embitter.

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So here it can't be true, is in quotation marks, right?

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It is in quotation marks.

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Because this is what she actually said or this is what she whispered, but in the next sentence, Evan

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wasn't his usual self that day, so he said no to our invitation.

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Here you can see there's no quotations because we're not implying we're not showing his actual response.

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We're just we're just giving you information about what he said.

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He said no.

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But if we had quotations around it, it would be a direct quote, it would be a direct quote of his

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response.