Comma Crimes, Part Two

Supplementary Materials for the "Comma Crimes, Part Two" Workshop

A restrictive element is a word, phrase, or clause that limits (restricts) the meaning of the element it modifies, providing information essential to the meaning of the sentence. The way to test if an explanatory element is restrictive is to take it out and see if it changes the meaning of the sentence.
A restrictive element is not set off with commas.

 

Example:

 

      “Students who score 90% or higher on all their quizzes do not have to take the final exam.”

 

If we remove the underlined phrase, we get the following sentence, which has a different meaning:

 

      “Students do not have to take the final exam.”

 

A nonrestrictive element is a word, phrase, or clause that provides informative but nonessential information to a sentence. In other words, it does not limit the element it modifies, so it can be removed without changing the sentence’s meaning. A nonrestrictive element is set off with commas.

 

Example:

 

      “Yasmine’s car, a green Volkswagen, was sideswiped by a careless driver last week.”

 

If we remove the underlined phrase, the basic meaning of the sentence stays the same:

 

         “Yasmine’s car was sideswiped by a careless driver last week.”

 

 Exercises

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