Question: I'm at a loss as to how I should title this. I have this sentence:

> 
> We have the option to provide notifications via 
>  telephone, and, possibly, email.
> 
> 
> 

I am trying to express several things:

1. We have an option to provide notifications
2. We can provide
those notifications via telephone
3. I think we can provide email
notifications (Further research is required, but I believe the
audience already has that context. The addition of "possibly" is
primarily meant to emphasize the lack of a guarantee).

Would I be better off with this:

> 
> We have the option to provide notifications via telephone, and possibly, email.
> 
> 
> 

or this:

> 
> We have the option to provide notifications via telephone and, possibly email.
> 
> 
>

Answer: 
I agree with Daniel, the commas are cluttering up your sentence unnecessarily.

You could consider:

> 
> We have the option to provide notifications via telephone and (possibly) email.
> 
> 
>
As others have noted, the three commas in

> 
> We have the option to provide notifications via telephone, and, possibly, email
> 
> 
> 

are unnecessary; or the comma before *and* could be retained ("...via telephone, and possibly email"); or the aforementioned "weak interruption" might be set off by commas ("...via telephone and, possibly, email"); or it might be set off by parentheses ("...via telephone and (possibly) email"). The last of these forms perhaps is most likely to convey the idea that email might or might not be available for notifications. That idea is slightly obscured by appearance of both *option* and *possibly* in the sentence. Consider a rewording like

> 
> We can provide notifications via telephone and (if circumstances permit) email.
> 
> 
> 

Saying "we can provide..." instead of "we will provide..." implies that notifications are optional, and it probably is not necessary to explicitly say they are optional. If for some reason you are required to be explicit, start the sentence off with "If you so choose" or "If you like" or "At your option":

> 
> If you like, we will provide notifications via telephone or (circumstances permitting) email.
> 
> 
>