Dreamland Community's review archive, open to view different reviewers past works :D
If you are looking to request a review, please head over to Dreamland Reviews!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
i. PUNCTUATION
#1: COMMAS
You've got the occasional commas issue, like every person ever. Yours, I think, will be easy to solve. Recall that commas are used to link clauses, and they're often used with conjunctions such as 'and' and 'or'. The rule is the comma only goes before the conjunction if both clauses are independent on either side.
Now, you don't have a problem with that. However, you have a problem with nonessential clauses. Look here:
'I got up today, despite being tired and cranky, and went to work.'
I've bolded the nonessential dependent clause here (One would correctly call it a phrase, but I always just separate clauses into dependent and independent when I'm explaining. Is it wrong? Technically speaking, yes, but it's dramatically easier to grasp comma concepts by ignoring phrases. The rules don't change either way as far as I'm concerned.)
We call this clause nonessential because it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence. If you take it out, we still have a complete sentence:
'I got up today and went to work.'
So when we have this situation, we surround the nonessential clause with commas. Here's an example from your book:
'Then one comment from her ex, as he unceremoniously dumped her for being a boring workaholic and Tilly had made it her life's mission to get Rose to stay with her in London to live a little.'
Taking out this nonessential clause, we can see the sentence still makes sense:
'Then one comment from her ex and Tilly had made it her life's mission to get Rose to stay with her in London to live a little.'
So therefore, that bolded clause is nonessential, and we need two commas there. If you look at the example from your book above, the comma needs to be after 'workaholic'.
Now, I would not write the sentence that way, but it's correct. This is how I would write it because I'm a comma minimalist, and I think writing is clearer the fewer you use:
'Then one comment from her ex as he unceremoniously dumped her for being a boring workaholic, and Tilly had made it her life's mission to get Rose to stay with her in London to live a little.'
Either is correct.
Here's a different example, where you incorrectly labelled a clause nonessential:
'Most people reclined in their seats, either engrossed in their phones, or relaxing with closed eyes, paying her no attention.'
