Oxford Comma

I’ve been doing a significant amount of reading and writing recently, both on my own and for work.  One issue that has come up frequently is that of the Oxford Comma.

The Oxford Comma, also known as the Serial Comma, is the comma that precedes the conjunction (usually ‘and’) when listing a series of three of more items.  I had no clue what an Oxford Comma was until I heard Vampire Weekend’s catchy song of the same name.  Since then, I’ve been debating the correct usage of the punctuation mark and until recently, I still had yet to settle on one consistent way to use it.

Despite all of the grammar training and workshops that my high school conducted, one of my English teachers told me that I still used commas unnecessarily.  Looking for ways to cut down on my comma usage, the Oxford Comma was the first to go.  The lack of an Oxford Comma didn’t seem to make a difference, so I began to leave it off in all of my writing.

However, my supervisor last summer, who was once an editor for one of her college’s publications and a self-proclaimed grammar aficionado, had a different opinion.  When editing my writing, she always made sure that I included an Oxford Comma in every press release and report that I wrote.

Faced with two conflicting pieces of advice from two people with more writing and editing experience than I had, I did what anyone would do, I turned to the internet in order to determine the correct usage of the Oxford Comma, if one existed at all.

Of course, the best answer I found was: it depends.

Well, the answer was more a little bit more specific.  In general, a Oxford Comma is not necessary unless the meaning of the sentence varies with and without the comma.

Here’s a funny picture to illustrate when an Oxford Comma would be needed: