Nothing quite sums up administrative work better than a pile of papers waiting to be organized and filed. Only a picture of the DMV with flickering fluorescent lights and endless lines could better illustrate the humdrum and menial that tends to pervade administrative work. But this characterization doesn’t present the full story. True, it is repetitive, and true, it can be menial, but administration in a large government or organization is vital to its success.
The real hurdle that has to be made for anything to go from big to ginormous, and still function properly, is organizational and administrative. A company must first identify the repetitive, routine tasks and then streamline and standardize them across all levels. Only by doing so, can the company expand across oceans and landmasses and employee or serve thousands, sometimes millions, of people. Furthermore, the classifying and standardization of administrative tasks allows the company or government to function at a higher level, dealing with the more complex issues that they will inevitably encounter.
The comma–the versatile little punctuation mark that it is–not only has more creative and independent tasks, but also rises to the occasion for the more administrative punctuation ones. And like the administrative work discussed, this use of the comma doesn’t involve any higher order cognitive skill or complex grammar processing. All you need is to know the times when a comma needs to do some administrative work in your sentence and put it to the job. That means no authorial choice; you have to use commas in these situations.
For a look at the other ways to use a comma, read these other articles: Comma Usage: Connector and Separator and Comma Usage: For Spicing It Up.
Commas with quotations
A common place to find commas is with quotations, either as a lead in or lead out. When citing a written work or directly quoting what someone says, a comma is used to lead into the quotation, that is, before the first quotation mark. Also, if the end quotation is not the end of the sentence, a comma will be used before the last quotation mark to transition into the rest of the sentence. There are examples of both below. (Note: colons can be used to introduce longer quotations as well.)
Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel begins, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
“I’ve set a record for guys that I can meet on OKCupid in one day,” lamented a woman sitting in a hip San Francisco coffee shop.
If another punctuation mark ends the quote, you do not need to use a comma.
INCORRECT: “Where are the lion cubs?,” asked the toddler.
CORRECT: “Where are the lion cubs?” asked the toddler.
Commas with dates
Commas are used in dates between the day and year. In some cases, though, you will not need to use a comma. It all depends on how you write the date.
COMMA: April 1, 1982
NO COMMA: April 1982
NO COMMA: 1 April 1982
Commas with addresses
Commas rise to do the administrative work of separating cities and states as well as states and countries. Additionally, commas separate the street address and the city.
San Francisco, California
New Delhi, India
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20500
Commas with numbers
With large numbers, commas improve readability, allowing the reader to process the number faster. With numbers that only reach the thousand digit, the comma is optional, but after the thousand’s digit, definitely use a comma. Lastly, don’t use a comma with years–unless you are reading this in year 2,321,930 A.D.
8,343 (or 8343)
10,290
293,392,838,932
It is the year 2013.
Commas with salutations
When writing a letter, the comma is used after the person’s name in the salutation. In formal letters, a colon can be used as well.
Dear Santa Claus,
I found out this year that you are not real. As such, I want all the cookies and milk back that you deceptively expropriated from our house.
