Please let me know if this sentence needs a comma.

Forums: Punctuation, Grammar, English
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Hello Everyone,

I would be very grateful if someone would let me know if there should be a comma somewhere in this sentence.

"Two of the largest obstacles preventing biomedical scientists in South America from contributing more to the global scientific community and effectively addressing the health related issues of their respective countries are the high costs of research supplies and the excessively long time that it takes for their research supplies to be delivered."

I was considering this as an alternative:

"Two of the largest obstacles preventing biomedical scientists in South America from contributing more to the global scientific community, and effectively addressing the health related issues of their respective countries, are the high costs of research supplies and the excessively long time that it takes for their research supplies to be delivered."

Thanks so much to anyone who is able to respond.

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Type: Question • Score: 3 • Views: 2,642 • Replies: 5

[+3] - layman - 02/03/2016Personally, I would go with number two. A comma may not be strictly REQUIRED, but it's not PROHIBITED by the sentence structure either, if you ask me. Since the sentence is so long, setting off...

@Posthuman,

Personally, I would go with number two. A comma may not be strictly REQUIRED, but it's not PROHIBITED by the sentence structure either, if you ask me. Since the sentence is so long, setting off some of the clauses with commas makes it more readable, I think.

You could also consider breaking it down into two or more shorter sentences.

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@layman,

Thank you so much!

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@Posthuman,

You're quite welcome.

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@Posthuman,

Nix on the comma.
There is only one clause in the sentence.
But it is overly long and could be rewritten.

"There are two large obstacles preventing biomedical scientists in South America from contributing more to the global scientific community and effectively addressing the health related issues of their respective countries: the high costs of research supplies and the excessively long time that it takes for their research supplies to be delivered."

Or similar.

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@Posthuman,

Two sentences would be better. However, if you really wanted to write it as one sentence, I would suggest the following:

High cost and delivery time of research supplies are two primary problems preventing South American biomedical scientists from contributing more to the global scientific community and from effectively addressing health related issues in their respective countries.

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Please let me know if this sentence needs a comma.

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