"Publish and prosper" is a series of posts about tips for researchers whose first language is not English but who submit papers to journals published in English. The series touches upon not only writing (spelling, grammar, punctuation, usage, and style) but everything else relevant to publishing research papers that journal editors wish their authors knew.

1. Comma to separate multiple
adjectives

2. Examine the following two sets of examples, one with commas and
the other without them.
• a fertile, well-drained, and level piece
With of land
• a large, nocturnal, and furry rodent
Commas • a shiny, hard, smooth, and thick layer
• the cheapest technically feasible
Without solution
• a locally grown early-maturing
commas cultivar
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3. What the two sets of examples have in common is
that both consist of phrases that end in a noun,
which is described by a string of adjectives before the
noun.
Yet, the adjectives in one set are separated by
commas; the adjectives in the second set are not.
Why?
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4. In the first set, each adjective qualifies the noun separately
or independently
• a fertile, well-drained, and level piece of land
With • a large, nocturnal, and furry rodent
commas • a shiny, hard, smooth, and thick layer
In a string of such adjectives, sometimes referred to as coordinate adjectives,
you can:
1. re-arrange the adjectives (list them in a different order)
2. replace every comma that separates two adjacent adjectives with and
3. yet produce a phrase that means the same as the original and does not
sound odd.
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5. In the second set, the examples cannot be reworded and re-
arranged so easily
Without • the cheapest technically feasible solution
• a locally grown early-maturing cultivar
commas
The examples cannot be reworded and re-arranged so easily without affecting the
meaning or without sounding odd because two adjacent adjectives form a unit.
Often, each adjective or a pair of adjectives modifies not just the noun but the rest of
the noun phrase.
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6. In the second set, the examples cannot be reworded and re-
arranged so easily
Without • the cheapest technically feasible solution
• a locally grown early-maturing cultivar
commas
In the first example, cheapest modifies technically feasible
solution and technically feasible modifies solution but "a technically feasible
cheapest solution" or "a cheapest and technically and feasible solution" is
neither idiomatic nor correct.
In the second example, locally and grown form one unit,
while early and maturing form another; The first unit modifies the second.
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