So, you thought only non-natives had comma issues?

And showing the wonderful range of topics in the excellent New York Times is this recent opinion piece by writer Ben Yagoda, "The Most Comma Mistakes" (2012). (Yes, we do need the comma before the title of the article - why is explained in it.)

In his short essay, Yagoda explains clearly, with plenty of good examples, some common problems that native English speakers have with commas; as you will notice, many of these are exactly the same problems that AEP students have with commas: where do sentences begin and end, how can clauses be connected, when is information defining and non-defining (or essential v. non-essential as Yagoda describes it), and so on.

You might find it both entertaining and useful reading practice, and I hope encouraging since Yagoda is writing not for students learning English as a second language, but for native users in the US and elsewhere.

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References

Yagoda, B. (2012, May 21). The Most Comma Mistakes. The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2012 from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/the-most-comma-mistakes/