Using the comma, punctuation

Writing headlines was interesting for me this week because I learned that a comma can stand in place of the word ‘and.’ I have never really understood this before. When reading headlines, I have always just paused when I have reached the comma. We read things aloud to ourselves in our heads. I have never said ‘and’ in my head when I reached the comma in a headline. Because of this, I think that using the comma as an ‘and’ should be avoided unless there is no other choice. Last week when we did the assignment where we searched through headlines, I found so  headlines that were clunky and awkward. It really taught me how much a headline can control your readership. This is especially important on a widely-reported topic. I noticed this around the World Series and around the presidential election coverage, it was the headlines that really drove you to pick a story, because everyone had a story about those two things.

I found my editing mistake for this week on Facebook. Not surprising. This one was quite embarrassing. She meant to say “serial killer” but she really said “cereal killer.” It is comforting to see that there is that little blue squiggly line under that phrase when I type it in. Yes, please do mark that wrong, computer.