
I won’t make that mistake again, that’s for sure. These punctuation markers are a useful way to identify non-restrictive information.Ī comma before that is necessary when it introduces a parenthetical phrase in the middle or at the end of a sentence. These can include commas, curved brackets, square brackets, or dashes. Parenthetical phrases always need enclosing with punctuation marks. If you remove it from the sentence, the meaning remains the same. In the example above, “ that girl sitting in the red chair” provides extra information, or what’s referred to as non-essential or non-restrictive information. Georgina, that girl sitting in the red chair, is actually my former roommate. You should use a comma after that when it closes a parenthetical phrase.Ī parenthetical element adds additional information and color to a sentence, but isn’t essential to the overall meaning. You should use a comma before that when it introduces a parenthetical phrase. Is There a Comma Before That or After That? Is There a Comma Before That or After That?. If you have questions about these terms or others as you are writing, contact us at. We hope that this post will help you use these two terms correctly in your writing. "The natural velocity provides us with a preferred time-axis at each point, namely, the time-axis for which the matter proximate to the point is at rest.". 'Namely' can also be used when redefining a term, as a substitute for “i.e.”: The study may have other limitations, but these are the main ones. “This study has several limitations, namely the small sample size and retrospective study design.”. That is, there are many cell cycle regulators, but these four groups are particularly important. “There are many cell cycle regulators, namely cyclins, CDKs, CKIs, and checkpoint proteins.”.
This word is useful when presenting a list that highlights the major or most important aspects of something:
“At the end of the meeting, the faculty returned to their respective offices.”.“The OD600 values for bacterial growth in the 20☌, 25☌, 30☌, and 37☌ groups were 0.5, 0.6, 0.9, and 0.7, respectively, at 2 hours, but all cultures reached saturation at 8 hours.”įinally, be sure not to confuse 'respectively' with 'respective,' which is an adjective meaning 'separate':.
If 'respectively' comes in the middle of a sentence, it should be both preceded and followed by a comma: This sentence does not include a second list that corresponds to the values listed and defines their differences. NOT "The OD600 values for bacterial growth were 0.5, 0.6, 0.9, and 0.7, respectively.”.This statement could otherwise be written as “The OD600 values for bacterial growth were 0.5 in the 20☌ group, 0.6 in the 25☌ group, 0.9 in the 30☌ group, and 0.7 in the 37☌ group.” This term should always be used for parallel lists (i.e., two lists with the same number of items), where every item in the first list corresponds to the item with the same position in the second list:
#NAMELY COMMA HOW TO#
Here are some examples of how to use these terms correctly: Respectively The words 'respectively' and 'namely' are very useful when providing specific information to the reader, but each is frequently misused.