Grammar/Punctuation help?

College Essays
1

I don’t need help with my entire essay, just small little things that may or may not be correct

  1. Do you use a hyphens for in depth in “You must be able to think critically and have an in depth understanding of the areas you pursue.”
  2. Do you use a hyphens for wide ranging in “To me, Columbia represents a well-established and thoughtful community, and wide-ranging ethnic and intellectual diversity is a quintessential part of that”
  3. Do I need a comma here " I admired individuals like Robert Herjavec who came from absolutely nothing, but worked their way up through hard work and perseverance."
    Sorry if these are simple questions, this isn’t really my stronger language. Does anyone know a good grammar checking website?
    Thanks everyone
2
  1. I would
  2. I would
  3. I believe it's not technically correct to have it there since the second part is a dependent clause. Personally I would probably delete the comma you have and possibly change "but" to "and." But that's just me.
3

Thanks for the help

4

Rule for hyphens generally IMO: If the modifier is before the noun, use the hyphen. If it’s after the noun, usually there’s no need.

A thought-provoking conversation was enjoyed by all.
All enjoyed a conversation that was thought provoking.

And generally no hyphen after words that end in ly. I’ve seen this more and more recently. The exception (and there may be more) is the word “family.” As in family-friendly theme park. The theme park was family friendly.

But not–

The slowly moving train went up the hill. No hyphen after the ly because the hyphen is implied by the ly.