I had an attack of acute gastritis a while back, although I didn’t know it at first. I thought I had a severely upset stomach, that’s all, although I was in a lot of pain and sleeping a lot. On the evening of the second day, I finally Googled my symptoms to learn it was acute gastritis.
As much as I appreciated finding the information I needed so I could treat the ailment, I was distressed to see this crazy use of commas on a medical website:
“There are several different types of acute gastritis. This is due to the fact that the physical processes in the body that lead to a person developing it, can vary, as can the parts of the stomach affected.”
Do you see the craziness? I see an extra comma between “it” and “can.” What the heck is that doing there? It should be written as:
“There are several different types of acute gastritis. This is due to the fact that the physical processes in the body that lead to a person developing it can vary, as can the parts of the stomach affected.”
Remember: If you’re ever unsure about when to use a comma—or leave it out—read your sentence out loud. If you pause, you need a comma.
If you read our Monday’s Mistake with a pause for the comma, it would sound like, “This is due to the fact that the physical processes in the body that lead to a person developing it (pause) can vary (pause) as can the parts of the stomach affected.” And that sounds weird!
However, that’s not all that’s wrong with these two sentences. They are also poorly written. The words “this is due to the fact” are usually clutter words, and there’s other clunky wording in here too. A quick rewrite gets us:
“There are several different types of acute gastritis because the physical processes in the body that cause it can vary, as can the parts of the stomach affected.”
I took it from 38 words to 28 words, and it’s much easier to read, right? So two lessons this Monday: One, get the commas right and two, cut the clutter!
Do you need to brush up on your punctuation? Download the brand new and FREE Guide to Punctuation, and make sure you’re right when you write.
Sharon Ernst
Sharon Ernst is a retired freelance copywriter now on a mission to improve the business and marketing writing skills of today’s workforce with her blog, newsletter and online classes.