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How to improve your writing: Enrich your punctuation

By Tom Aaron

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Published: 02Jul2009
Word count: 575
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Writing is an art that demands writers master many different skills. Editing writing, correcting grammar, and using rich punctuation are some of these skills. Punctuation may be the least respected skill. Were Rodney Dangerfield to write of punctuation, he might say, "Punctuation is like me. It don't get no respect." When we think of punctuation, we may only think of punctuation marks, but punctuation is much more. Anything used in written language that is not a letter or number is punctuation. This means punctuation marks, spaces between words, and indentation are all part of punctuation. If we turn to Wikipedia, we can find a definition of punctuation. Wikipedia says, "Punctuation marks are symbols that correspond to neither phonemes (sounds) of a language nor to lexemes (words and phrases), but which serve to indicate the structure and organization of writing, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading it aloud."

We enrich our punctuation the same way we improve our writing. The above paragraph is the first version of a rough draft. Let's edit it and see how we can improve the punctuation.

The art of writing demands writers master many different skills including editing, correcting grammar, and enriching punctuation. Punctuation may be the least respected skill. Were Rodney Dangerfield to write of punctuation, he might say: "Punctuation is like me. It don't get no respect." Punctuation goes beyond punctuation marks; anything in written language outside of letters and numbers is punctuation.

Punctuation marks, spaces between words, and indentation are all punctuation. Wikipedia defines punctuation: "Punctuation marks are symbols that correspond to neither phonemes (sounds) of a language nor to lexemes (words and phrases), but which serve to indicate the structure and organization of writing, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading it aloud."

Let's look at two differences between the first and second versions.

1. The number of paragraphs

The first version had one long paragraph, which became two paragraphs in the second version. Paragraphing is part of punctuation. A paragraph can be as short as one sentence or as long as several pages. A one-sentence paragraph, however, is unusual outside dialogue. Longer paragraphs are hard on readers. Breaking a long paragraph into two or more smaller paragraphs makes reading easier.

2. Variety in punctuation marks

The first version used only periods and commas; the second version added colons and semicolons. Punctuational variety enriches the writing. Many people use an extremely limited repertoire of punctuation marks: periods and commas. Use variety in punctuation marks to differentiate your writing from everyday writing without this rich variety.

We would also like to show additional ways to use punctuation:

1. Colons can emphasize contrast.

We waited all day for Godot to show up: He never arrived.

2. Ellipsis emphasize that there is more.

We ate apple bars with whipped cream, lemon bars with nuts, marshmallow bars, meltaway chocolate bars....

Improving your punctuation is fairly easy; remember the colon and the semicolon. When you read, notice the punctuation. See how you can add ellipsis, exclamation points, dashes, and more. Observe, learn and improve your writing.

Still, we don't want you to overwhelm your readers with punctuation. Thinking of punctuation as a piece of chocolate cake might help. One piece of chocolate cake may taste like heaven; two pieces may just be too much heaven. Using exclamation points, dashes, and ellipses too often may overwhelm your readers and begin to interfere with their reading of your writing.

Aaron Language Services on the web at http://www.aaronlanguage.com provides translation, proofreading, and online English coaching to a primarily Japanese client base.

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