The Serial Comma

[Ken Banks <edits -at- hawaii -dot- rr -dot- com>]

If anyone is still interested, here is a real-world example from my 
current job.

"The best management practices may include typical mitigation 
measures such as using silt fences, protecting inlets and catch 
basins, appropriately stockpiling materials on site to prevent runoff 
and building over, and establishing landscaping as early as possible 
on disturbed soils . . ." [Yes, there's more.] This writing is 
grotesque; please don't write to tell me about the other problems 
with it. Some of them I will fix, others I will not. If I made this 
document read like [pick an example of good writing and editing], I 
would be exceeding my authority.

There should be a comma after "runoff." We're not appropriately 
stockpiling materials on site to prevent "building over," which is 
how it reads. And the comma after "building over" should be deleted, 
because building over and establishing landscaping go together as 
ways to minimize erosion. Building over means constructing buildings.

What is to be gained by not using it?
Ken




The Editorial Outsource
767 Waianuenue Avenue
Hilo, Hawaii 96720
Office: (808) 934-7363
Cell: (808) 896-8616
edits -at- hawaii -dot- rr -dot- com


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