Rashional Thoughts: What’s new at TAB? New decade brings style revisions, beginning with more commas

Good news for all you English majors and English teachers out there — we are bringing back the comma.

Well, maybe not to the level an English major or teacher would prefer, but the comma will show up more in TAB articles going forward. 

For at least 25 years, the TAB team has worked within the most accepted writing style for journalism — Associated Press — but we also made some customized style adjustments to lessen comma usage anywhere we could that would not affect the readability.

Through the years, staff members responsible for editing copy changed several times and TAB’s customized comma rules gradually simplified to a basic rule of thumb: only use commas where absolutely necessary.

While the concept did simplify the style and assured we didn’t fall prey to an overuse of commas, each writer and copy editor has differing opinions of what “absolutely necessary” means, so consistency quickly became an issue.

Also, the lack of commas has frustrated readers and we want to listen to those concerns. 

So, with the new decade comes a revival of the comma.