Going back to those sentences that have the commas, the pause or comma is breaking up the actions that are meant to go together in a group:

“My friend skates - and cycles.”

“Hannah sings - and plays the guitar.”

“Andy draws - and paints.”

Why would you put the first verb with the subject by adding a comma afterward? It doesn’t make any sense unless you have a specific situation where you are trying t make the reader pause, perhaps for emphasis. If that were the case, you would be better using the em dash (-).

Our sentences are quite simple really; we have one subject and a compound predicate or two verbs. You do not need to split the ideas up by using a comma.

If anything, it is better to omit an Oxford comma (green, red and blue) than it is to split compound predicates with an unnecessary comma. It just makes your reader pause and stumble where there is no need.

Let’s jazz up those sentences a little bit:

“My friend skates at the weekend and cycles to work when the weather is good.”

“Hannah sings in a choir and plays the guitar at a bar at the weekends.”

“Andy draws up architectural plans during the week and paints landscapes at the weekend.”

These are the exact same sentences but we added some extra modifiers. Do you think a comma is needed in any of these sentences? And if you do, where would you place them? And why?

Each of the sentences contains the same single subject and the same predicate compound despite the extra modifiers added. The problem is this – these sentences are very long and they are a mouthful. Shouldn’t we use a comma in them just to break them up a little bit?

Good point. But commas aren’t meant to be used only for breaking things up.

If you want a comma in your sentence you must know why you are using it.

We could pad those sentences out a bit more.

“Hannah’s husband Andy draws up building plans for an architect during the week and paints beautiful landscapes using charcoal and pencils at the weekend.”

Now we really do have a mouthful and a more complicated sentence. We still have an independent clause and it still has one subject and a compound predicate. By the time the second verb comes around, it seems to be just hanging and it is crying out for a comma.

“Hannah’s husband Andy draws up building plans for an architect during the week, and paints beautiful landscapes using charcoal and pencils at the weekend.”

The second verb still hangs even though there is a comma but there is something else wrong here. We made the mistake of splitting the compound predicate and we also have a fragmented sentence that is no longer an independent clause.

This doesn’t just apply to the long sentences either; it also applies to the shorter ones where a comma has been added unnecessarily or in the wrong place.

What do we do instead? Read part three to find out.