comma with page number: check in Appendix B, page 30, for more

A

AgaS

Member
Polish
In a paper, I am reffering the reader to a page of an appendix. I am in a quandry about the commas in the sentence below.
Should it have to commas between which extra information is included:

... check in Appendix B, page 30, for more examples.

Or is just one comma enough?

... check in Appendix B, page 30 for more examples.

I'll be most thankful for any opinions on the subject.
 
    • My vote is for two commas.

    Alternatively "check in Appendix B (page 30) for more examples."
     
    The simplest would be to have no commas at all.
    If i wrote commas, I myself would choose two commas, but I don't think it would be wrong to have only one comma. The important thing is to be consistent.

    PS Biffo's use of brackets (page 30) is another solution.
     
    e2efour said:
    Example of one comma from a government publication ((www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/mocmanualch2part8rev48.pdf). Of course, there's no guarantee that it was not written carelessly!

    Note    : See Chapter 2.7, page 3-19 for action to take where it is suspected that the correct stain is not being used
    Click to expand...
    No guarantee at all! The basic sentence is:
    See Chapter 2.7 for action to take where it is suspected that the correct stain is not being used.
    If we want to add "page 3-19", we put it either between commas or without commas. One comma makes no sense in this case; it's like opening brackets and not closing them.
     
    It might not matter too much, but at least in academic works I usually just see something like this: (see Appendix B).

    If you have to include the page number (perhaps because the appendix is long and it would be difficult for the reader to locate the relevant information without the page reference), then I would probably say "see Appendix B (p. 30)." Whether you spell out the word page or use p. or no word or abbreviation at all depends on which style guide you are following (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.).

    At least in U.S. English, for most cases, I would use "see" instead of "check in" unless the sentence really caters to the latter for some reason.

    There is also a slight possibility of ambiguity with the page number (if the appendix is labeled separately from the pagination of the main document), although that is generally not standard in scholarly publications (if that's what you are writing, not sure), so I'm guessing that is not the case.

    Good luck!
     
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