Here is the paragraph that served as the model for the punctuation exercise on page one. Commas are bracketed in bold to help you spot them.

The Least Successful Car

(Paragraph With Commas Restored)

In 1957[,] Ford produced the car of the decade--the Edsel. Half of the models sold proved to be spectacularly defective. If lucky[,] the proud owner of an Edsel could enjoy any or all of the following features: doors that wouldn't close[,] hoods and trunks that wouldn't open[,] batteries that went dead[,] horns that stuck[,] hubcaps that dropped off[,] paint that peeled[,] transmissions that seized up[,] brakes that failed[,] and push buttons that couldn't be pushed even with three people trying.

In a stroke of marketing genius[,] the Edsel[,] one of the largest and most lavish cars ever built[,] coincided with rising public interest in economy cars. As Time magazine reported[,] "It was a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time." Never popular to begin with[,] the Edsel quickly became a national joke. One business writer at the time likened the car's sales graph to an extremely dangerous ski slope. He added that so far as he knew there was only one case of an Edsel ever being stolen.

What's Next?

• For additional practice in using commas effectively, see Frederick Douglass.
• For practice in using commas and semicolons effectively, see Review Exercise: Using Commas and Semicolons Correctly.