Business Writing Grammar: Serial Comma or Oxford Comma
This one paragraph contains a business writing error. Find and correct it.
Your personality should be present in your business writing. When balancing personality with message, be certain to consider audience, content and tone.
Explanation:
This is a tricky grammar hunt. Technically, it is not incorrect, but it does illustrate the less accepted version of the serial comma (also called an Oxford Comma). Here is the corrected version:
Your personality should be present in your business writing. When balancing personality with message, be certain to consider audience, content, and tone.
To define: a serial comma is the optional comma used at the end of a list. The most common conjunctions in a list are “and” and “or.” The serial comma is the comma that comes before the conjunction:
I like cookies, cupcakes(,) and gumdrops. (The comma before and is the serial comma.)
The customary convention is to use the serial comma in business writing. You will find more detailed explanations of serial comma use in this article, Serial Comma in Business Writing.
