Regarding punctuations (English section)

Test Preparation ACT Preparation
1

<p>So I was doing some research on punctuation and came across this page on commas: The</a> Joining Comma. </p>

<p>Here's an extract:
"The connecting words however, therefore, hence, consequently, nevertheless and thus cannot be used after a joining comma. Hence the following examples are also wrong:
*Saturn was long thought to be the only ringed planet, however, this is now known not to be the case."</p>

<p>I then proceeded to do some sample questions in the Real ACT Prep Guide and came across a question with the bracketed part underlined:</p>

<ol>
<li>The (court noted, however) that restrictions may be justified......
The correct answer is that the bracketed part should be replaced with 'court noted, however,'</li>
</ol>

<p>So now I am very confused as I don't know which is the correct way of using a comma in this context. Could it be because the website I got the information from is a British website? Thank you.</p>

2

<p>Here is what I think.</p>

<p>Since “Saturn was long thought to be the only ringed planet” part is an independent clause, you cannot use comma after that to adjoin another independent clause.</p>

<p>One of the right choices can be, “Saturn was long thought to be the only ringed planet; however, this is now known not to be the case.”</p>

<p>But in the “The court noted, however,…” part, it is one whole sentence, except it’s separated by “however” with commas.</p>

3

<p>Ahh I never thought of that. Thanks!!</p>