Paying attention to punctuation sounds a bit prissy and fussy, but in content creation (which we used to call writing or copywriting), it’s still essential.
And Maeve Maddox, who posted “10 punctuation tips for every writer” on Ragan, is a genuine voice of authority.
Here are her ten rules for excellence in punctuation. They are worth mastering, and the examples she provides in her post really bring them to life. (In this post, examples of correct and incorrect usage are mine.)
- Follow introductory words, phrases and clauses with a comma. For example: At the end of the day, we were all tired.
- Set off nonessential information with commas. For example: The chef, who had trained in Italy, was famous for his Caesar salad.
- Don’t set off essential information with commas. For example: President Trump who created “covfefe” is known as a colorful communicator. (Is this essential information? Hmmm.)
- Place a comma before a coordinate conjunction—such as but or and—separating two independent clauses. For example: The boys heard the train barreling toward them, and they ran to put a penny on the tracks.
- Don’t join two independent clauses with a comma. It’s not strong enough, as Ms. Maddox puts it. Such comma splices result in run-on sentences. For example: Thank you for your business, please come again. (I’ve seen this in front of a couple of businesses in my neighborhood. Always makes me wince.)
- There’s no need for a comma before a noun clause “in ordinary narration.” Whew! For example: The tourists discovered, that the museum was closed for the day. The noun clause is “that the museum was closed for the day.” And as Ms. Maddox points out, it is the direct object of the verb “discovered.”
- Use a comma before a direct quotation. For example: Her doctor advised, “Avoid foods that contain trans fats.”
- Use a colon after a complete sentence—not a sentence fragment—to introduce a word, phrase, clause, list or quotation. For example: She lists three favorite things in life: sunrises, sunsets, and rainbows.
- Use an end stop, such as a period, to separate main clauses that are not part of a compound or complex sentence. Whew! For example: The pouring rain flooded the garden it washed away the newly planted grass seed. You need a period after “garden.”
- Refrain from using multiple exclamation points. Maddox notes that they “don’t belong in mature writing.” For example: Before my horrified gaze, the car was swallowed up by a sink hole!!!
As I’ve said so often, we’re all in a hurry, and our communications reflect the speed at which we live. We text. We send email. Now, texting may give us a little more latitude to be loose with grammar, but email does not. Think about it. We use email to persuade, give direction, and request information—all of which we used to do in more formal communications, such as memos—so it makes sense that we should try for punctuation elegance and precision.
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