Richard De AMorelli (editor) - Quick & easy English punctuation : a modern punctuation and style handbook for writers and students

Quick & Easy
English
Punctuation

Compiled & Edited by
Richard De AMorelli

Spectrum Ink Publishing

Tomorrows Great Classics Today

Quick & Easy English Punctuation

Copyright 2017 by Spectrum Ink Publishing

Published simultaneously in Canada & the United States

First Edition: 11 February 2017

All rights reserved worldwide under U.S., Canadian, and international copyright treaties. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means including photocopying, scanning, or digital reproduction. This content may not be posted on any blog, website, or social network without the publishers knowledge and written consent, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. The publisher hereby disclaims all such views and statements.

ISBN numbers:

978-1-988236-21-6 ~ mobi

978-1-988236-50-6 ~ paperback

Spectrum Ink Canada

Vancouver, British Columbia

Spectrum Ink USA

San Luis Obispo, California

Online:

http://vu.org/books

Punctuation, often misused or dismissed as trivial by many writers, is more important than you might think. It allows your words to tell their story. These small but crucial marks in your sentences are like road signs; without them, readers can get lost in a confusing jumble of words. Learning basic rules of punctuation is a must if you want to write well. Fortunately, the rules are easy to learn, and you will find many helpful shortcuts in these pages.

This book is intended as a desktop reference on English punctuation for writers, college students, ESL learners, and those in the workplace who are called upon to create well-written documents. It offers bite-size tutorials and simple advice on how to use commas, semicolons, and other punctuation marks in all kinds of writing, both fiction and nonfiction. It also will teach you that punctuation rules are not set in stone; rather, you have choices. Youll discover that you can rearrange your sentences and use punctuation creatively to make your writing more interesting.

Quick & Easy English Punctuation is aimed at these readers who may benefit from this useful guide:

Writers of all skill levels will learn how to recognize and fix punctuation errors in their manuscripts, and how to use the various marks to add clarity and sparkle to their prose.

Students can use these rules to correctly punctuate term papers and other academic writing.

Teachers can use this book to help students learn basic concepts of punctuation without the stress and tears.

ESL/EFL learners will benefit from the many short, easy-to-understand examples provided in the book.

Employees can follow these rules to create well-written reports, manuals, and other documents in the workplace.

Read any chapter of this book, follow the simple punctuation rules, and you will see a fast improvement in the quality of your writing. Read a chapter a day, and in two weeks, you will be sufficiently adept in punctuation that youll be able to add a touch of style and polish to everything you write.

This book expands on the authors bestselling writing guide, Elements of Style 2017 . It includes material drawn from that book but delves deeper into the subject of punctuation, providing more examples and an additional eighty pages of content. Once you have mastered the concepts in this book, you may wish to continue on to Elements of Style 2017, which offers a comprehensive primer on English grammar .

The content in this book is comprised of original material remixed with updated and revised content drawn from a variety of copyrighted sources used with permission, and public domain materials including: Practical Grammar and Composition (Thomas Wood); English Punctuation by Benjamin G. Benedict; A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students by Paul Allardyce; NARA Style Guide (National Archives); Guide to Marking Written Assignments (Ian Johnston); EIA Writing Style Guide (U.S. Energy Information Administration); and Government Printing Style Manual (2008 ed.).

Cover graphic elements licensed from Adobe Stock Photos.

This book makes frequent references to The Chicago Manual of Style (16th Edition) and A P Stylebook for writers of American English; and to Oxford Style Guide for writers of British English. Examples and discussion on stylistic differences are provided throughout the book. This current work is not intended as a substitute for any of these style guides. It may be used as a learning tool and a quick-reference alternative, but editors and publishers should rely on the latest version of their preferred style guide as the final authority.

Table of Contents

The night is falling down around us. Meteors rain like fireworks, quick rips in the seam of the dark... Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas
a whole grammar made of light.

Jodi Picoult
My Sisters Keeper

M any writers assume that grammar is boring and punctuation is trivial. In reality, grammar is the mortar that holds your words together in a coherent fashion, and punctuation is the finishing touch that makes good writing great and written language more effective by allowing words to tell their story. The lowly commas, periods, and other marks inserted into your sentences are like road signs; without them, readers would get lost in a confusing jumble of words. Punctuation directs the reader's eye from word to word, from one sentence to the next, indicating thoughtful pauses by commas, graceful transitions to new thoughts by periods, interrupted action by dashes and ellipses, queries raised by question marks, anger and surprise by exclamation points, and more. By using these marks artfully, you provide a window into your thoughts and the inner sanctuary of your mind where the winds of creativity blow; where you hear the whispered pauses and stops in your narratives and dialogue, represented by the punctuation marks that you write into your sentences.

Author and literary agent Noah Lukeman observes in A Dash of Style: There is an underlying rhythm to all text. Sentences crashing fall like the waves of the sea, and work unconsciously on the reader. Punctuation is the music of language. As a conductor can influence the experience of the song by manipulating its rhythm, so can punctuation influence the reading experience, bringing out the best (or worst) in a text.

Without punctuation, everything we write would be susceptible to ambiguity and misinterpretation. Even when punctuation is used, but it is used incorrectly, readers are at risk of serious misunderstandings. You might think short sentences would have clear meanings, but just a few words can be perplexing if punctuated incorrectly. Consider this example, where the meaning is quite different, depending on whether two commas are used or omitted:

The prisoner said the witness was a despicable thief.

The prisoner, said the witness, was a despicable thief.

Many hilarious examples of short sentences with flawed or missing punctuation have been featured in memes shared on social networks. Heres another:

Lets eat Grandma! Im starving!

Poor Grandma. For lack of a comma, she is at risk of becoming someones dinner. When we insert the missing comma, grandmas fate is brighter.

Lets eat, Grandma! Im starving!

Punctuation as it is used today is a relatively recent innovation. The invention of the printing press made it necessary to have a well-defined system for using the various marks that had existed for centuries. Previously, the personal preferences of scribes had determined how these marks were written. With the dawn of an era in which books could be reproduced faster and more easily than by hand copying came the need for a systematic approach to recording and sharing the written word. A widely understood system of punctuating those writings to enhance clarity was also a necessity.