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Some writers sprinkle commas into their work as if the sole purpose of the comma is to give the reader a short breather in the middle of a long sentence. Others appear to regard the traditional use of commas as selling out to the establishment, as if writing were some higher expression of individuality and not a means towards clearer communication. Between those two extremes lies the truth of the matter: Commas serve a unique purpose in writing. Just as a period is a "stop sign," the comma "directs traffic" between the stops.

Of all English punctuation marks, these little "traffic signs" in our writing have the most "rules of the road." Unlike English spelling, commas have reliable and consistent rules, a few of which are not necessarily intuitive and must be learned and accepted. Since these rules are mostly broken, I shall list them first:

Dates: Use a comma to separate the day, month and year from the rest of the sentence.
For example: He was born on June 18, 2008, in St. Louis. People often omit the final comma.

Geographical location: Use a comma to separate cities and states from the rest of the sentence.
For example: He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 18, 2008. Again, writers often omit the comma after the state.

Now that the hard stuff is out of the way, let's look at a rule you may not have thought of. Did you know that a comma used in items in a series can actually be promoted? Strictly speaking, this is not a rule on commas, but of its "big brother," the semicolon. The rule is self-explanatory, and I shall illustrate it with an example:
On our vacation we visited Paris, France; London, England; and Edinburgh, Scotland.

In the previous example we enhance the readability of our sentence by avoiding an interminable series of commas through the intervention of a sort of "flashing" traffic sign, the semicolon.

Next we have the often misused and confusing so-called "restrictive" and "non-restrictive" rules in setting off adjective clauses. Again, I shall illustrate this rule with examples:
Restrictive: John was a person who felt that rules did not apply to him.
Non-restrictive: John, who felt that rules did not apply to him, was always getting into trouble.

Restrictive clauses are necessary to the meaning of the sentence. We do not use a comma. Non-restrictive clauses, on the other hand, enrich the meaning of the sentence but are not absolutely necessary. The commas, like the little traffic signals they are, tell us that we can move on without the part

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