No discussion of competing style guides would be complete without considering the Oxford (or serial) comma debate. Exactly why this quirk of comma usage stirs such passion is hard to say, but this may have something to do with it: The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook doesn’t ban the Oxford...
The argument about clarity is the main point of debate. The following section examines it in more detail. Does the serial comma make lists clearer? Advocates of the serial comma claim that it clears up confusion in two kinds of lists: ...
The serial comma (aka Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is a term that describes the use of a comma before the conjunction in a list of three or more items (e.g., the comma before “and” in “pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon”). The name comes from the fact that it’s used in...