Punctuation

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

Commas:

When to use them, when not to use them?

And during the process of figuring the rules out--does it look worse to use too many commas or too few?

Comments

[pocket-girl.livejournal.com]

there are too many rules for them, so even Russians are often confused. ^_^;
but if you remember all the rules, it's possible to write right :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The question is too general - like, "what is the rule of using Russian verbs." Unfortunately, there is no simple and universal rule, good for all cases. Russian syntax is tricky, and it's syntax that governs the punctuation - especially commas (dots are easier: you simply use a dot every time your sentence ends.) It takes about 140 large chapters to describe Russian syntax and punctuation in a good Russian textbook for native speakers (http://www.hi-edu.ru/x-books/xbook089/01/index.html?part-058.htm#i7253).
Try to ask more specific questions on punctuation usage, like "how to use commas with parenthetical clauses," and I'm sure we could be of more help.

[ex-ex-mmnd9.livejournal.com]

pretty complicated to explain it here.

[tinde-j.livejournal.com]

Well, most general rules to begin with are these:
1) within a clause, you have to use it between homogenous articles, but NOT before the conjunction "и" (also "да" when it means same as "и") - unless there are more than one of it in the frase, like "На столе яблоки, конфеты и груши" - cf. "На столе яблоки, и конфеты, и груши"
2) you are to pose commas on both sides of a gerung or gerund frase "Мальчик, стоя у стола, читает книгу"; but if a single gerund notifies just a mode of acting, commas are not obligatory "Мальчик читает стоя"
3) a participle frase is to be serarated on both sides when it is after the word it relates to, a single participle is not to be separated "Мальчик, читающий книгу, стоит у стола", "Читающий книгу мальчик стоит у стола", "Читающий мальчик стоит у стола", "Мальчик читающий стоит у стола" - the latter sounds a bit awkward, as if you classified boys as those who read books and those who don't :)
4) within a compound sentence, ALL clauses are normally separated by commas "Поют птицы, и шумит ручей"; but if some frase belongs to both clauses, the comma may be omitted "В лесу поют птицы и шумит ручей"
5) you are to separate the frase or word you are appealling to a person with "Мама, возьми тарелку", "Оля, возьми тарелку"
6) introductory frases are alwaya separated on both sides "Наверное, это интересно", "Во-первых, не кричи, во-вторых, мы это уже слышали от тебя"
7) comparative frases are separated on both sides "Он смотрел на них, как пойманный зверек"
I believe it's all I can remember now. There are lots of more exact rules, and you really should better take a good textbook. Unfortunately, all I can advize you is in Russian, but may be it helps?
http://www.rusyaz.ru/pr/ - an almost complete list of cases, there is also orthography there;
http://repetitor.1c.ru/online/disp.asp?2;0 - an online repetitor
http://www.gramma.ru/RUS/?id=5.0 - one more perfect sorce of information
http://orel.rsl.ru/archiv/sekret_titl.htm - this site is under construction, but the book they are going to publish is an extremely useful one: our old textbook for russian schoolchildren
PS: please forgive my poor english punctuation :)