In some, but not all, studies...Comma?

'some' means 'but not all'.

You don't need ',but not all,'

=boron;8975979]Are commas needed here?

In some, but not all, studies...

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If the meaning is clear commas are not necessary.

"but not all" is unnecessary, but as long as it's there, you need the commas; you're separating a dependent clause from the main sentence.

boron said:

Yes, I agree and I feel more comfortable with commas, because they give more emphasis to "but not all."

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I agree with you here. The commas are not necessary, and "but not all" is not necessary, but the phrase is a common and ordinary way to ram home the idea that something happens in many cases, but sometimes something else happens.

boron said:

Yes, but this is a common expression to avoid misleading interpretation that something works when in fact does not necessary work...If I limit Google search to site:gov, I still get 1,500,000 results for the term "some but not all."

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Heh. I would not cite government bureaucrats as examples of writing to emulate. Clear and concise are not in the government vocabulary.

You really don't need the phrase. If you happen to have the percentage of studies handy that represent "some," that would be even better.

If you insist on keeping the phrase in there, you do need the commas.

Just out of curiosity, who is your target audience, boron?

boron said:

BethS, when I use site:gov search and health-related terms, I typically get pubmed.gov (the largest library of online scientific medical articles), cdc.gov and such, so I can quickly check for the "grammar usage in the scientific medical context." I was always wondering who proofreads those sites, though.

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