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I am editing a safety manual at work and am having a hard time figuring out comma placement. Many sentences are complicated and technical, which I'm not used to editing. Below are general examples of where I get hung-up.

Would I place a comma after visitors, or leave as-is?

Asbestos awareness training for employees, subcontractors, and visitors may be necessary depending on the concentrations of NOA present.

Is the comma after device(s) appropriate?

The switch, valve, or other energy-isolating device(s), will then be initiated to ensure that the equipment is isolated from its energy source(s).

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  • Maybe just "The equipment will then be isolated from its power source." ?
    – Will Crawford
    Commented Mar 3, 2018 at 1:07

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Such 'technical' difficulties in punctuation in my experience most often suggest that you should revise your original phrase structure, rather than seek a "perfect medium" between unsatisfactory alternatives.

"It may be necessary for .., .. and .. to undergo/receive asbestos training, depending ..."

"This will then initiate the ............., to ensure ..."

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Both examples would be incorrect with the additional comma, because in both cases that comma would separate the subject from the verb that directly and functionally makes sense of the sentence. It would be hard to imagine a more important need for clarity than in a technical manual for operating potentially dangerous equipment. For the same reason I'd recommend retaining the Oxford comma throughout the manual. It's the last one in the list before the word "and," and could turn out to be critically important in some contexts.

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  • Both passages should follow your first example, without the questionable commas. Congratulations on caring about the difference, though. Many a publisher before you has gone the wrong way, seemingly without noticing … which proves that in practice this doesn't really matter, as read by most people, even though it's clearly wrong. However, why are you asking this in ELU, rather than somewhere like English Language Learners, please?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 19:22

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