February 19th, 2010
The iPad: When You Don’t Need Two Commas
Things that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size are natural and almost magical on the iPad.
— Daniel Eran Dilger, “Hands on with Apple’s iPad (with videos and photos),”
Apple Insider, January 27, 2010
Imagine this sentence were longer. Would it still be correct without any commas if it read this way?
Activities like looking at large webpages and reading e-books that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size are natural and almost magical on the iPad.
Yes, it would still be correct. That’s because those highlighted words are crucial to the author’s meaning. The sentence would mean something else without them.
It would be incorrect to use commas in either sentence – e.g., “Activities like reading e-books, that aren’t practical on the iPhone due to its small size, are natural and almost magical on the iPad.”
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For more guidelines on how to use commas correctly and confidently, see our updated book Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide, which will ship on March 5th!
Tags: Apple, commas, e-book, essential clauses, iPad, iPhone, punctuation, screen size