And you don't have to be a grammar professional to have an ... and more for those of you unfamiliar with the Oxford comma rule, including examples for each. Related: What Exactly Is the Difference ...

A few less-common yet well-placed punctuation marks can give your application essay a sophisticated edge. For example, consider adding a semicolon to connect two closely related sentences ...

Use and between the last two items, instead of a comma. For example: Today I need to buy milk, bread, apples and potatoes. In longer sentences, you can use commas to separate out extra information ...

When combining two complete sentences with a conjunction ("and," "but," "or," "for," or "yet"), precede the conjunction with a comma. Example: Still, the sun is slowly getting brighter and hotter, and ...

Grammarians disagree over whether a comma should be placed before the conjunction in a series (the underlined comma in example 2 below is a “serial comma”). However, confusion can be avoided by adding ...

Soon, they were joined by Miranda Schwartz, a copy editor who was wearing a shirt that read “I’M SILENTLY CORRECTING YOUR GRAMMAR” — notably, the message lacked a punctuation mark at the end.