Editing for Punctuation
Warm-Up
This is a little
story about a conversation a boy and his dad had after Christmas
one year. Read the story and pay attention to the punctuation.
How many different types of punctuation does it contain?
Do you know the name for each form of punctuation?
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A
few days after Christmas, a mother was talking
to her six-year-old son.
Son:
Dad, is there a Santa Claus?
Dad: Why do you ask? What do you
think?
Son:
Well I noticed that the videogame I got from you
and Mom and the gifts I got from Santa were
wrapped in the same kind of wrapping paper.
Then
the boy paused for a minute and thought.
Son:
I'll tell you what. You and Mom can go on
buying me presents and let's just forget we ever
had this talk!
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*Adapted from http://www.absolutelycleanjokes.com/children/after-christmas-thought.html
You should have
counted 10 punctuation marks in this dialogue. There are:
- 2 commas (,)
- 3 question marks (?)
- 2 periods (.)
- 2 apostrophes (')
- 1 exclamation point (!)
Do you know how and when to use all these punctuation marks? Let's take a look at them all so that you can use them correctly and edit for them effectively in your writing.
Lecture
1: Final Punctuation
ESL teachers love to stand in front of the class and ask their students, "What does every sentence in English have to have at a minimum?" Most students will reply, "A subject and a verb, of course!" While this answer is mostly correct, these students are forgetting one important ingredient of a sentence in English: the final punctuation. All sentences in English must have some type of final punctuation at the end, and writers have three choices: the period (.), the question mark (?), and the exclamation point (!). Each option communicates a different meaning, so let's take a look at all of them.
The Period
(.)
The period is definitely the most common punctuation mark
that is used at the end of sentences in academic writing.
Questions and exclamatory statements, which carry different
final punctuation, are rarely used in this type of writing.
We use periods at the end of statements and commands:
- Statements: Remember that a statement,
which is also called a declarative sentence, declares
or states something. All statements have at least one
subject
and one verb.
Notice the period at the end of
each sentence below:
-
Mexican Independence
Day is celebrated
on September 15th and 16th of
every year.
- For the month of Ramadan
Muslims
fast during the
daylight hours and eat
small meals and visit
with friends in the evenings.
Commands: Remember that a command,
which is also called an imperative sentence, tells or
requests someone to do something. An imperative sentence
does not have a subject (the subject is the implied “you”),
but it always has at least one
verb.
Notice the period at the end of
each sentence below:
-
Look
under the Christmas tree to see if there is a gift for
your grandmother.
-
Be thinking
of what you want to give your father for Father’s Day.
The Question Mark (?)
We use question marks at the end of questions, which are
also called interrogative sentences. Questions
request information from the listener or reader and have
at least one subject
and one verb.
Notice the question mark at the
end of each question below:
- What
did Santa
Claus bring
you this year?
-
Who put
all those Easter eggs in our backyard?
The Exclamation Point (!)
We use the exclamation point with
exclamatory statements.
You can use exclamatory statements to express strong or sudden
emotion. Exclamatory statements can take many forms. Notice
the exclamation mark at the end of
each statement below:
- Happy New Year
!
- Look what I got for my birthday
!
- Quick! Go to bed!
I hear Santa Claus’s reindeer and sleigh on the roof
!
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