POLISHING UP YOUR PUNCTUATION / 35 The sea was calm, the sun was shining, the beach was empty and Anne felt at peace with the world. If you begin a sentence with a conjunction, use a comma to separate the dependent clause from the main. In the pre- vious sentence ‘if’ is a conjunction and there is a comma after ‘conjunction’. Here are two more examples with the conjunctions under- lined. Notice where the comma is placed: Because it was raining, we stayed inside. As the sun set, the sky glowed red. There must be two clauses following a conjunction at the beginning of the sentence. Commas are also used to separate groups of words which are in the middle of the main sentence as in the following sentence: Separating groups of words Beginning a sentence with a conjunction ‘Clive’ is the subject of the sentence and ‘who had just changed schools’ says a little more about him so therefore it is enclosed by commas. It is a dependent clause. Clive, who had just changed schools, found it difficult to adjust to his new surroundings.