Pebblepup's Writing Den

Punctuation is so underrated. It’s quite important. If you had no periods to end sentences, you would not have time to draw a breath when reading the sentences aloud. That’s their function.

Commas help clarify things. There’s an old joke out there about commas. Consider the sentence, “let’s eat grandma!” Does this mean they want to eat their grandma, or they are inviting grandma to eat with them. That’s the very important job of the comma.

Punctuation can reduce ambiguity. When we write, we need to be clear. A lot of human communication is through body language, when we speak. Our tones and how we hold ourselves give clues. When we write, we lose those clues. The river bank could refer to a financial institution somewhere near a river. Or it could mean the side of a river itself. Capitalization can reduce that confusion.

In writing, punctuation marks show when you should pause and how long you should pause. A comma indicates a short pause. A period indicates a longer pause. Quotation marks show places where a character, or a person, is speaking. The question mark denotes a question.

Did you get bread. Tom said.

Yes. Sally said and got it from the bread box.

You have the idea that Tom asked a question, but it’s clearer with both quotation and question marks.

“Did you get bread?” Tom came into the kitchen.

“Yes.” Sally got it from the bread box.

Using quotation marks clues your reader in that the characters are conversing. You don’t need the clue word, “said.”

There are other punctuation marks that do more to clarify sentences. The semicolon links two related, but independent clauses in a sentence. The use of the semicolon means you don’t need a coordinating word like “and” or “or”. The semicolon is another way to connect related ideas in sentences. The colon works in a similar method. They cause you to make different pauses than the commas and periods in sentences.

Punctuation marks help your reader by providing clues to the sentence’s meaning. The reader can imagine how the sentence should sound. They don’t actually need to hear it.

“Stop that!” has a completely different interpretation to “stop that.” The former is a command and the later a mere statement. The words are the same, the meanings are the same, but the urgency is different. The clues are in the punctuation mark.

This is not a comprehensive discussion on punctuation. Others have done a much better job of explaining it than I have. You can find their explanations on the internet by searching on the term, punctuation.

Punction is necessary if you want your writing to be clear. If it isn’t clear, you will lose readers. Readers are the reason we write, even if we are the only readers of our work. So keep your punctuation in mind when you are writing. You can break the rules of punctuation, but keep in mind that, if you do that, you risk losing reader. Good luck and keep writing.