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I have a sentence that continues after an enumeration, such as the following:

Due to X, it is difficult for researchers, lecturers and students, 
but also expert engineers, to apply Y.

I'm wondering whether or not the comma after engineers is needed. My gut feeling says yes, for the reason that it separates the enumeration from the continuing sentence.

Unfortunately, I can't find any source that discusses this situation. Does anybody here know a source, or has good arguments for/against the comma?

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  • I think the reason why you're opting for the unacceptable 'but' here is to indicate a rather startling additional member to the list. Andrew's second suggestion provides the [not quite] 'shock, horror' subtext, but so would 'Due to X, it is difficult for researchers, lecturers and students – and also expert engineers – to apply Y'. For even more horror, an italicised exclamation mark could be added to the parenthetical, before the closing dash.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 23, 2020 at 12:13
  • @EdwinAshworth Well put! That is indeed why but was used. I'll probably go with Andrew's second suggestion; for me, yours seems to cause slightly too much "shock" than I'd like to. But the dashes are definitely worth keeping in mind, thank you.
    – Malte Schwerhoff
    Commented Jan 24, 2020 at 13:08
  • I'd use ' ... and even ...'.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 24, 2020 at 17:55

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It is necessary, but not because it separates an enumerated list, rather it marks off a parenthetical insertion. The phrase "but also expert engineers" is inserted and needs to be set off with commas (or dashes):

Due to X, it is difficult for researchers, lecturers and students to apply Y.

Due to X, it is difficult for researchers, lecturers and students, but also expert engineers, to apply Y.

Note that because "it is difficult" is a positive statement [albeit stating an undesirable situation], you can't use the negative but. You need and.

You can use but if the overall sentence is negative, say with not only:

Due to X, it is difficult for researchers, lecturers and students, and also expert engineers, to apply Y.

Due to X, it is difficult not only for researchers, lecturers and students, but also expert engineers, to apply Y.

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  • So ... +1 for my gut feeling, -1 for my technical understanding ;-) Just to clarify: are all four example sentences of yours grammatically correct? "you can't use the negative 'but'" suggests to me that the second sentence is actually wrong.
    – Malte Schwerhoff
    Commented Jan 23, 2020 at 9:42
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    You're right, it's wrong: the first set of examples are your sentence (to show parenthesis); the second set demonstrates negative polarity.
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Commented Jan 23, 2020 at 9:54

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