According to the Associated Press Stylebook, to which The Emory Wheel adheres, the Oxford comma, which appears before the coordinating conjugation in a list, should be omitted. Opponents claim the comma is unnecessary and cite a certain clunkiness, whose offensiveness is apparently more important than ensuring clear and consistent language.
The Oxford comma alleviates ambiguity, which is the reason most other style guides — the style guides of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Medical Association (AMA), as well as the Chicago Manual of Style and most European guides — recommend its use. If ethos doesn’t sway you, consider the example of a Maine dairy company, which earlier this year lost millions because of the absence of a Oxford comma in their overtime pay rules.
While use of the Oxford comma may seem pedantic and its proponents supercilious, it is clearly a useful grammatical device. So why would an organization which values accuracy and clarity in its writing abstain from its use? You’ll have to ask my editor.
Madeline Lutwyche is a College sophomore from Baltimore, M.D.
Associate Editor | mlutwyc@emory.edu
Madeline Lutwyche (20C) is from Baltimore and studies math and computer science. After serving as opinion editor from Fall 2017 to Spring 2019, Lutwyche is now an associate editor. This past summer, she worked as a software development intern for IBM and spent Fall 2019 abroad in Salamanca, Spain. If you can't find her, she's probably taking a nap somewhere in the Wheel offices.
