Sunday, September 13, 2015

Blog 2: A period is a period. Period. Commas, however, are commas.



Periods are the "closers" or our sentences. They are also used to create abbreviations or decimals. Commas are used to give our sentences rhythm. Too few commas make us run out breath. Too many commas make us sound like we are playing stop and go.

I have a big problem with commas. I tend to put into too many whenever I feel like a sentence needs to be paced. When I do this, the sentence look like something that came from a Virginia Woolf novel. Using the correct AP stylization for my commas is something that I need to work on.

I volunteer at an elementary school. I help students that struggle with reading and writing. I was looking over one essay yesterday and saw an error that I didn't immediately recognize. It read:
I was born December, 2007.

The student didn't need the comma after December. The AP Stylebook explains how to properly punctuate dates. Another grammar book said that when writing for publication, it's best to write the date in a way that sounds natural.

A picture to help us remember what commas and periods are for:



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1 comment:

  1. bryan k laySeptember 13, 2015 at 6:45 PM

    i really like your picture because it made me laugh. after doing the reading, i have to agree with the picture because i have found that when there is a comma, i am able to slow down my words so that other people can understand what i am saying or even writing. is it not interesting how different books are not even in agreement on simple issues such as the date.

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