Punctuation
Punctuation marks help you to organise your words into clauses and sentences, and hence into identifiable units of meaning. They are the signs that alert readers to the appropriate pauses in your text. These pauses signal where you intend the emphasis and intonation to be placed, and thus how you want the text to be read. Punctuation marks help you tell the reader how to find the meaning from your organisation of the words.
Thus punctuation is more than just an incidental aspect of writing. It is an essential skill that helps you to express yourself clearly, directly and effectively.
Common punctuation marks are:
- End marks - the full stop or period, question marks, exclamation marks
- Commas
- Colons
- Semicolons
- Apostrophes
- Quotation marks
- Parentheses
- Dashes and hyphens
- Ellipsis
Activities
Once you have explored the punctuation marks, test your understanding by doing these two activities.