Correct Usage of Punctuation – Avoid Those Tiny But Embarrassing Mistakes
Punctuation is an integral part of writing English text. Regardless of the flavour of writing, it is always important to have a careful look at the usage of your punctuation (commas, periods, ellipses, and semicolons etc.) before you finalize your write-up. The punctuation mistakes are quite common and often, are too small to be ignored while you are writing. Unfortunately, it’s not so when you are read; an incorrectly placed comma can change the entire meaning of the text or a wrong usage of period can make you look stupid.
Following are few tips to avoid some of the common mistakes using punctuations:
Use of commas and periods while quoting a statement
Place the comma or period before the closing quotation mark because it will represent a completion or conjunction of a statement that was quoted.
Examples of correct usage:
- I said, “There is no reason for you to think of me otherwise.”
- “There is no reason for you to think of me otherwise,” I said.
Use of semicolons and colons while quoting a statement
Place the semicolons and colons either after closing quotation mark or before opening quotation mark because they are generally not the part of quoted statement.
Examples of correct usage:
- I said, “The amount of detail you are giving on Macrolane is too much”; he kept going on, nevertheless.
- The president made the following statement: “All the ministers are advised to not make their funding statements publicly available without an official approval from none other than me.”
Use of comma while adding extra information about the subject
Place a comma after the subject and after the phrase containing extra information about the subject. In the following example, ‘one of the former American presidents’ is the phrase with extra information about the subject.
Example of correct usage:
- John Kennedy, one of the former American presidents, made several visits to our country in his efforts to establish business relationships with our people.
There are many other places where punctuation is used incorrectly by a majority of people. However, the golden rule for good and effective writing is to sit deep into the reader’s mind and try to hear in your mind, how your sentences sound to a reader. This applies to virtually all the situations where you are confused over a particular usage of the language.
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