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I am confused if I should use a comma in the following series? Note that there is no "and" in the series, and all the three adjectives, i.e., powerful, high-throughput and low-complexity are modifying the word "decoder".

This requires a powerful high-throughput low-complexity soft-output decoder for LDPC codes.

or

This requires a powerful, high-throughput, low-complexity, soft-output decoder for LDPC codes.

user81985
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  • Possible duplicate: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/59376/when-are-and-and-commas-used-in-a-list-of-adjectives – Kevin Workman Jun 23 '14 at 17:16
  • @KevinWorkman The link you mentioned suggests that a comma be used, but I have seen the examples where a comma is not used, e.g., http://www.amazon.com/Throughput-Power-Architecture-Network-chip/dp/3659232351 – user81985 Jun 23 '14 at 17:30
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    Titles of books usually don't follow standard grammar rules. – Kevin Workman Jun 23 '14 at 17:32

3 Answers3

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I would use every comma except the last one in your second example. 'Soft output decoder' can essentially be treated as a single term. You could write "I'm looking for a powerful soft output decoder", the same could be done with any of the three adjectives. Each of the three adjectival terms should be separated by a comma, but the list of adjectives doesn't need to be separated from the term they are modifying.

I think this would be best:

This requires a powerful, high-throughput, low-complexity soft-output decoder for LDPC codes.

If you want to treat soft-output as a 4th modifier for decoder then I think your second example is correct, but I feel like that would be non conventional.

Dave Magner
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Both are correct, the second one with the commas 'reads' better.

Oahawhool
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Apologies if this misses the point of the question but maybe the sentence could be restructured to avoid the problem entirely?

"For LDPC codes, a decoder that is powerful, high-throughput, low-complexity and soft-output is required."

Matt Carr
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