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Ann, once again I checked your comma posts for an answer to my question before using my "last resort" option. Could you tell me if my commas and dash are placed correctly in the following sentence? I am least certain about the first one, and most certain about the remaining ones. I think, according to one of Jan's lessons, everything in between the comma is a non-essential. Am I wrong?


Excerpts from, The Healing Heart - Minds, Moods, and Machines- will give us an important dimension to the effects of emotional stress on the heart.



Thanks,

Lillian

Excerpts from, The Healing Heart - Minds, Moods, and Machines- will give us an important dimension to the effects of emotional stress on the heart.

Let's break this down.

First of all, there is only one comma, so it's not setting off anything that could be non-essential and the dashes aren't either. The book's title is essential to the meaning of the sentence.

Excerpts from The Healing Heart--Minds, Moods, and Machines will give us an important dimension to the effects of emotional stress on the heart.

The title becomes a non-essential element if you were to write the sentence in this way.

Excerpts from Joe Smith's book, The Healing Heart--Minds, Moods, and Machines, will give us an important dimension to the effects of emotional stress on the heart.

The reasoning is because the sentence does not lose its meaning if the title is removed.

Excerpts from Joe Smith's book will give us an important dimension to the effects of emotional stress on the heart.

Thanks, Ann. I'll keep at it. Commas are hard...one step forward and two steps back.


Lillian