Jack smiles, takes out his phone, and hands it to her.
In this particular sentence, is the second comma necessary, obligatory, or should it not be included?
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See this advice: grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-and– Ronald SoleJun 30, 2020 at 14:13
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It's optional. The only reason for writing a comma is to reflect what would be a pause, in the spoken version of the utterance. It would be a bit "stylised, literary", but you could even discard the word and completely here (though in that case there would definitely be a pause, so you'd definitely need to write it with a comma).– FumbleFingersJun 30, 2020 at 14:14
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You could also write Jack smiles and takes out his phone and hands it to her. From the sentence alone, it's not clear if it's a list of three items, in which case the style choice is between using a serial comma or not at the end, or if takes out his phone is nonrestrictive information, in which case the two commas are acting parenthetically (but they could be replaced by actual parentheses or dashes.) In all likelihood, it's not parenthetical. But prior context could establish it as being so. (Perhaps he was actually making a drink earlier on, and that's what he's now handing her.)– Jason BassfordJun 30, 2020 at 14:21
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2On the assumption that you're actually thinking of the sentence as a list with three items, the following should answer your question. Is it necessary to use commas in lists before the conjunction?– Jason BassfordJun 30, 2020 at 14:24
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