(1) It were the Saturday night at the beginning of Fall Break. I was outside eating some “Peaches and Cream”-flavored ice cream that had been bought from the store that morning. The day had been beautiful. (2) Standing on the back deck, especially later, in the day, when I was grilling chicken thighs, was so cool and breezy that I even opened up the door and left it open myself. As I spooned the quickly-melting ice cream, the dogs were taking their final jaunt of the night. (3) As I finished the last bite or two of the ice cream, they scrambled up the back deck steps. (4) And we came in for the night.

Question

(1) It were the Saturday night at the beginning of Fall Break. I was outside eating some “Peaches and Cream”-flavored ice cream that had been bought from the store that morning. The day had been beautiful. (2) Standing on the back deck, especially later, in the day, when I was grilling chicken thighs, was so cool and breezy that I even opened up the door and left it open myself. As I spooned the quickly-melting ice cream, the dogs were taking their final jaunt of the night. (3) As I finished the last bite or two of the ice cream, they scrambled up the back deck steps. (4) And we came in for the night.

#1: Between Sentences (2) & (3), explain why one successfully controls a sentence using commas while the other does not; be careful to use grammar vocabulary.

Answer 1

Sentence (2) successfully controls a sentence using commas because it contains an introductory phrase, "Standing on the back deck," which is followed by a comma. This comma separates the introductory phrase from the main part of the sentence, indicating a pause and allowing the reader to understand the structure and meaning of the sentence.

On the other hand, sentence (3) does not use any commas because it does not contain an introductory phrase. It directly begins with the subject "they" and the verb "scrambled," without any need for a pause or separation. Therefore, there is no grammatical reason to include a comma in sentence (3).