What punctuation does for your writing is similar to what
drums do for music, creates a rhythm. Punctuation can guide and move your
readers through your writing smoothly or it can make your readers frustrated
and they quickly lose interest. For instance, a comma signals to readers that
there should be a pause or a slowdown whereas a period signals the end of a
complete thought (we hope!). An exclamation point signals readers of the
importance of the sentence much like a forte signals musicians to play louder.
The
other punctuation marks such as the colon and semi-colon are just as important
to the writing piece much like a musical accompaniment but I like to focus on
the one that is most misused, the dreadful comma. In my personal experience, I
have noticed that many people either over use the comma placing it everywhere
they pause to take a breath or they hardly ever use them at all making their
sentences very wordy and tiring to get through. Comma use can make or break
your writing.
When used correctly, commas help to ensnare your readers and
keep them hooked and reading but much like the orchestra, a single instrument cannot
encompass the full sound of the piece. Punctuation is just one piece of the
puzzle. This leads me to the editing error I found this week. I was perusing
the available internships for communication majors when I found a word misspelled
in one of the listings. They were outlining the general duties and said that
the intern would be “assisteng” the regional Marketing manager not assisting
them.
Wow! I think they should use your description of punctuation in our book. I think it was put together very well. I thought the same things about commas that you do. They are either never used or overused. I even find myself using them a little too often when I go back and edit my papers. I usually need to rephrase things and take out a few commas. That section helped me to be more clear on when you use them and when it is really necessary and others when it is not.
ReplyDelete