: Re: How many commas is too many? I find myself often in writing using too many commas, but then going through and editing many of them back out again or restructuring to use full-stops. Is there

@Kristi637

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If you're using commas where they shouldn't be, they should obviously be removed.

One less common example of the misuse of a comma that might happen is comma splicing - using commas to join two independent clauses and create a run-on sentence. It happens like this, sometimes you miss it because it looks like an subordinate clause.

However, sometimes all the commas do belong where they are and yet it still feels like too much. Usually it's a case of this:

I think that situations such as this one, where there are lots of nested parenthetical, but still grammatically discernible, phrases, are the issue, as far as I know, where most people have the most trouble with the use of commas, because, because of all that nesting, they tend to take a lot more mental accounting to parse. Usually, in cases like that, in order to avoid comma overuse, the solution is to reword the sentence to make the phrase more direct and decipherable.

As far as I know, the issue where people have the most trouble with the use of commas is in situations such as the above where there are lots of nested parenthetical phrases that are still grammatically discernible but take a lot more mental accounting to parse because of all that nesting. Usually the solution in cases like that is to reword the sentence to reduce comma usage and make the phrase more direct and decipherable.

In other words, if you have too many commas, usually it's not the commas themselves that are the problem. Look at your sentence structure and see if you're taking yourself for loops while reading it.

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