Editing Serial comma (section)

==Arguments for and against==
Common arguments ''for'' the consistent use of the serial comma are:
*The comma's use is consistent with the conventional practice of the region.<ref>''The Oxford Style Manual'', 2002: "But it is commonly used by many other publishers here and abroad, and forms a routine part of style in US and Canadian English" (p. 121).</ref>
*It can resolve [[Syntactic ambiguity|ambiguity]] (see [[#Ambiguity|examples below]]).<ref>''The Oxford Style Manual'', 2002; from discussion of the serial comma: "The last comma serves also to resolve ambiguity, particularly when any of the items are compound terms joined by a conjunction" (p. 122).</ref><ref name=Petelin/><ref name=USHouse>U.S. House Legislative Counsel's Manual on Drafting Style, No. HLC 104-1, § 351 at 58 (1995)</ref>
*{{anchor|Semicolon}}Its use is consistent with other means of separating items in a list (for example, when [[semicolon]]s are used to separate items, one is always included before the last item).<ref>''The Oxford Style Manual'', 2002; in discussion of the semicolon, examples are given in which complex listed items are separated by semicolons, with the same structure and on the same principles as are consistently recommended for use of the comma as a list separator in the preceding section (pp. 124–5)</ref>

Common arguments ''against'' the consistent use of the serial comma are:
*The comma's omission is consistent with the conventional practice of the region.<ref>Ridout, R., and Witting, C., ''The Facts of English'', Pan, 1973, p. 79: "Usually in such lists 'and' is not preceded by a comma, […]".</ref>
*It can introduce ambiguity
*When space is at a premium, it adds redundancy and unnecessary bulk to the text.

Many sources are against both systematic use and systematic avoidance of the serial comma, making recommendations in a more nuanced way as reflected in [[#Recommendations by style guides|recommendations by style guides]].