Is it
teachers', students', and administrators' experiences
or
teachers,' students,' and administrators' experiences
? I think it is the first example with apostrophe, then comma?
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1Welcome to EL&U. Do not confuse apostrophes with quotation marks.– chosterCommented Feb 17, 2016 at 23:19
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1 Answer
The comma does not go inside the apostrophe. And you have too many commas.
It is OK to say
teachers', students' and administrators' experiences...
That is, your second comma is not needed, unless you are devoted to the Oxford Comma.
The 'Oxford comma' is an optional comma before the word 'and' at the end of a list: We sell books, videos, and magazines. It's known as the Oxford comma because it was traditionally used by printers, readers, and editors at Oxford University Press.
It would be neater to say:
The experiences of teachers, students and administrators...
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3Your link does at least go on to point out that the extra comma is [extremely] useful in obvious contexts such as These items are available in black and white, red and yellow, and blue and green (three different types). Personally I wouldn't use one in OP's specific case because all three nouns are "interrelated" (through an educational establishment) - so if I were speaking, I'd rattle them all off quickly because they're a "composite unit". But if they'd been, say, teachers, politicians, and accountants (no obvious connection), I'd pause before the last. And write an Oxford comma. Commented Feb 18, 2016 at 0:33
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...that's to say, the idea that it's some quaint "outmoded" typographic convention is really just so much tosh. It's a useful feature of the written form, and writers who eschew it "ideologically" deprive both themselves and their readers. Commented Feb 18, 2016 at 0:37