Unless you are writing for a newspaper or magazine, or for another publication with a style guide that discourages its use, my advice is to use the serial comma.

The main reason for using the serial, or Oxford, comma is that it helps avoid a reader’s momentary confusion. The classic example of this confusion, as noted in World Wide Words, comes from an apocryphal book dedication: “To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.” While we can be pretty sure that the author’s parents are not Ayn Rand and God, the absence of the comma after “Rand” might make the reader pause or re-read.

In her excellent book Rhetorical Grammar, Martha Kolln claims that the absence of a serial comma “may imply a closer connection than actually exists between the last two elements in the series.” She provides an example from The New York Times to demonstrate: “The agricultural and industrial revolutions were accompanied by new plagues, pollutants and weapons of destruction.” In this sentence it’s easy to see how the reader might think that there are two plagues—pollutants and weapons of destruction. A reader might also interpret the last two elements as being shorthand for “pollutants of destruction and weapons of destruction.”

In his poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost has this terrific line:

These woods are lovely, dark and deep

Here it makes sense to drop the comma before the “and” because Frost is saying that the woods are lovely in that they are dark and deep, rather than saying that the woods are lovely and dark and deep. In other words, the “dark” and “deep” describe the loveliness. Apparently, some poetry anthology editors have added the comma before the “and,” even though Frost didn’t include it in his published version of the poem. Can you see how that comma subtly changes the meaning of the sentence? Those editors should have left the comma out.

Resources

Here are a few other articles and weblog entries that discuss the serial comma:

• Discriminations: “The New York Times: A Serial Comma Offender”
• Capital Community College: “Rules for Comma Usage”
• World Wide Words: “Oxford Comma”
• Get It Right: “Comma Before ‘and’” provides support from legal references for use of the serial comma

When you write a name with a jr. after the last name, a comma is used. When you write III, do you put a comma after the name:

John Jones, Jr.
John Jones III (is a comma needed)?

You are correct that, at least traditionally, a comma is used with Jr. In fact, if Jr. appears in the middle of a sentence, a comma is used before and after it: “The abbreviations etc. and jr. are always preceded by a comma, and except at the end of a sentence, followed by one.” (Strunk and White, The Elements of Style)

To answer your question, though, I’ll refer to the Chicago Manual of Style:

Q. John Smith Jr. or John Smith, Jr.? John Smith III or John Smith, III?

A. Traditionally, it would be John Smith, Jr., and John Smith III. But beginning with the fourteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (1993), the recommendation is to use no commas in either case (see paragraph 6.49 of the fifteenth edition):

John Smith Jr.

But please note that within text, if you decide to use the more traditional comma before Jr. or Sr., the function of the comma is to set off these abbreviations, so an additional comma is needed after the abbreviation if the sentence continues (as in my first sentence above).

The New St. Martin’s Handbook doesn’t recommend one way or the other for Jr., but it does note that writers are leaving the commas out:

Use commas to set off a title such as M.D., Esq., and so on from the name preceding it and from the rest of the sentence. The titles Jr. and Sr., however, are often not set off by commas.

• Jaime Mejia, Ph.D., will speak about his anthropological research.
• Martin Luther King Jr. was one of this century’s greatest orators.

So, if you are a traditionalist, use the commas; if you are progressive, don’t. As with many matters of grammar and punctuation, the most important thing is to be consistent.

Hyphens. Sometimes you use them when you put a verb and and a noun together, but not always? What’s the rule? Is it carbon-tipped? Is it Horse-drawn?

While there are a few proper uses of the hyphen, the one Andy is referring to is for a compound adjective in the pre-nominal position. In other words, the hyphen goes between multiple-word adjectives when they precede the word that they are modifying. We don’t use a hyphen, however, if one of the modifiers is an adverb ending in -ly.

Notice that “carbon tipped” in sentence 3 and “door to door” in sentence 5 do not have hyphens, because they do not come directly before nouns.

What is the proper placement of punctuation and quotes in the following two sentences?

1. “Why is it increasing?”, “Do you think it will continue to increase?”, and “What is the smallest value?” are some questions a math teacher might ask their students.
2. Unfortunately, this student’s usual reaction is to make some rude remark, yell “I don’t understand!”, or not attempt the assignment at all.

Actually, I don’t know of any instance in which using double punctuation would be acceptable, except in informal writing when showing exclamation and surprise (“?!?”). However, I must say that I was stumped, especially with the first example.

I turned to someone who is much smarter and more knowledgeable than I am—a former colleague of mine in the Calvin College English Department, who suggested recasting the first sentence and simply removing the comma in the second. Here is what the two sentences would look like with proper punctuation:

1. Here are some questions a math teacher might ask students: “What is the smallest value?” “Why is it increasing?” “Do you think it will continue to increase?”
2. Unfortunately, this student’s usual reaction is to make some rude remark, yell “I don’t understand!” or not attempt the assignment at all.

You’ll notice that in the first sentence we put a complete statement first and followed it with a colon. We then listed each question in a more logical sequence, wrapping each one in quotation marks. Finally, we removed “their” to avoid the pronoun-antecedent disagreement (a math teacher/their).

For basic guidelines on using punctuation with quotation marks, see my previous entry: Quotation Marks. Please note, though, that the rules are different for Canadian/British English.

According to Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab, the MLA guideline for formatting quotations is as follows:

Place quotations longer than four typed lines in a free-standing block of typewritten lines, and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, indented one inch from the left margin, and maintain double-spacing.

Of course, the guideline applies mainly to academic writing in the humanities. For writing on the internet, line length is often determined by the reader’s web browser, and double-spaced paragraphs are rarely used.

If you’re writing for the web, Dr. Brian J. McFadden at Texas Tech University suggests using block style for quotations of more than 50 words. I’m not sure how he arrived at that number, but it seems reasonable enough to me.

When begining a sentence with “also,” do I have to put a comma after “also?”

Yes

If you attach “also” to a free-standing sentence, then you do need to put a comma after it.

Example:
Jose Saramago writes novel with a distinctive style. Also, his eccentric plots often reveal hope in the midst of despair.

Notice here how the rest of the sentence can stand on its own without “also.”

And No

If “also” is part of a complement in an inverted sentence pattern, then you do not need to put a comma after it.

Example:
John Tallman was slated to dive for the U.S. team. Also on the roster was Jerry Lancelot.

In this example, “also” is part of the phrase “on the roster.” The normal structure for this sentence would be, “Jerry Lancelot was also on the roster.” Now that I look at my example sentence again, I can imagine it standing on its own without “also”: “On the roster was Jerry Lancelot. Still, “also” is a part of that phrase that makes up the subject complement.

Yikes, that was a hard one to explain. I’m afraid I might have confused matters even more. Let me know if you need further explanation, or if anyone out there can help clarify.

Here are some examples:

• James‘s cat
• Mrs. Jones‘s attorney
• Dr. Seuss‘s book

Exceptions

Of course, we’re talking about the English language, so we’re going to have some exceptions to the rule. While grammar books and style guides don’t necessarily agree on how to determine these exceptions, most consider a word’s pronunciation. Here is what a few of the books say:

• If pronunciation would be awkward with the added -’s, some writers use only the apostrophe. Either use is acceptable. (Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference)
• Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in -es and -is [such as Achilles' and Isis'], the possessive Jesus’, and such forms as for conscience’ sake, for righteousness’ sake. (Strunk and White, The Elements of Style)
• With some singular nouns that end in -s, pronouncing the possessive ending as a separate syllable can sound awkward; in such cases, it is acceptable to use just an apostrophe. (Kirszner & Mandell, The Brief Holt Handbook)
• Since writers vary in the use of the apostrophe, it is not possible to make a hard and fast rule about the apostrophe in singular words ending in s.… Punctuate according to pronunciation. (John E. Warriner, English Grammar and Composition)

For more on this issue, see the article at World Wide Words

What are the rules for punctuation when using quotation marks? I vaguely recall something about commas, question marks, etc. being placed inside and outside the quotation marks, but don’t remember the rules

The rules differ depending on whether you’re writing for an American audience or for a British/international audience. I’ll discuss the American system, since that is what I know best. Perhaps someone else could weigh in on the British system through a comment.

• Periods and commas: inside the quotation marks
• Colons and semicolons: outside the quotation marks
• Question marks and exclamation points: (a) inside if the question or exclamation is part of the quotation, and (b) outside if the question or exclamation is not part of the quotation

If we look at the actual punctuation symbols, we can detect a visual pattern to the rule:

• . | , inside
• : | ; outside
• ! | ? depends

Extra Credit:

One exception to the rule for commas and periods is the MLA style for parenthetical documentation. If you’re quoting a source and citing that source in parentheses at the end of the sentence, the period should follow the parentheses. Example: In Free Culture Lawrence Lessig claims, “the Internet should at least force us to rethink the conditions under which the law of copyright automatically applies” (140).

Thank you, Susan, for your question!

Let’s imagine that we want to write about our three favorite cities in the United States:

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Seattle, Washington

Each element in this list already has a comma in it. Although most people would have no problem separating the cities from the states, clumping them all together with only commas could make for some slow, labored reading.

Incorrect: My favorite cities in the United States are Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Boston, Massachusetts, and Seattle, Washington.

So we use the semicolon to break the series into more meaningful chunks. Semicolons handle the big chunks and commas handle the smaller chunks within the big chunks.

Correct: My favorite cities in the United States are Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; and Seattle, Washington.

Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses, meaning two clauses that can each stand alone as a sentence.

Examples:
John loves to sell houses; he’s a real estate agent by trade.
Frank dislikes selling houses; nevertheless, she’s a real estate agent by trade.

The semicolon often seems to lend an air of formality to a sentence. Both examples could have been broken into two sentences for a slightly more casual feel (although it’s hard making a word such as neverthelesssound casual). The semicolon also makes the relationship between ideas seem closer than a period would.