Punctuation in English
Parkes (1992), in his invaluable study of the history of punctuation, states:
"Punctuation was developed by stages which coincided with changing patterns of literacy, whereby new generations of readers in different historical situations imposed new demands on the written medium itself' (p. 2).
Punctuation is not a static model and even if we confine the discussion to early modern and modern English, it has changed quite considerably across time (Numberg, 1999). The uses of punctuation are conventional; they change over time and vary from language to language. There have been to be conventions or rules, for without these, punctuation would be wholly idiosyncratic and the possibilities of using it to facilitate effective communication would be either lost of severely hindered (Beard & et al., 2009). Some rules of punctuation are mandatory: if we violate them, we have made mistakes in punctuation. Others are optional: our choice is basing on the effect and emphasis we desire to deliver. To that extent, Greenbaum and Nelson (2002: 183) say “punctuation is an art.”
There was a considerable debate between two schools: one believed punctuation should be based on elocution (how a sentence is spoken when it is read out aloud) and the other believed punctuation should be based on the grammar (Petit: 2003; Curtis, 2007; Hall and Robinson, 1996; Parkes, 1992). The latter (the syntactic-based approach) is the one we use today, which means the debate was won by grammar school. Recently, Dawkins (2003 and 1995) has come out with a new believe: teaching punctuation should be based on the meaning (the semantic- based approach). Dawkins (2003) assumes that writers have an intuitive sense of the independent claus...
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..., p. 349). Moreover, Chiang (1999) claims that in EFL writing, the sentence(s) may appear to be appropriate order, but in incongruent places due to inappropriate use or non use of punctuation.
Using the premise that students often have weak language skills, Warner (1979) surveyed 431 postsecondary students using four tools: student’s scores on an objective test, an in-class writing sample, an editing exercise, and a questionnaire about background in English and attitude toward grammar and writing. She found that the largest number of errors in the writing occurred in punctuation. She came out with:
The high error rate in punctuation resulted from 1) the students not knowing the rules of punctuation, 2) knowing the rules but not being able to apply them to their own writing, or 3) constructing such poor sentences that correct punctuation was impossible (p.18).
Michaela Cullington, a student, wrote a paper “Does Texting Affect Writing?” in 2010 for an English class. The paper is an examination of texting and the belief that it negative effective student’s writing. Cullington goes into detail about textspeak- “language created by these abbreviations”- and their use in formal writings. She organizes the paper in a way that is confusing to understand at first (pg. 1). At the end of the paper, she discusses her finding in her own research which comes to show that texting does not affect writing. But this is contradicting to the information she received from the teachers. The students and the teachers were seeing differences in the use of textspeak in formal writing. Cullington has good support for her
Comparing myself from the beginning of the semester to now, I may honestly say I have improved in my grammar usage and punctuations. A prime example of my punctuation problem was seen in my personal narrative essay, “Nevertheless, I was first born here in Honolulu, Hawaii in the pink hospital, but did not stay here long” (Personal Narrative Essay). Within the example, I have an error of overusing commas. The overuse of commas happens to be a horrendous matter of mine. While in high school, my English teachers would
When I initially thought about writing style I believed that there would be some nice neat definition, and maybe a few rules that would govern writing with “style”. It turns out that I grossly underestimated this topic and while I knew that writing style would be a topic of considerable depth, I did not fully understand the degree that I would be pondering the issue of writing with “style”.
A few of the common conventions are capitalization, paragraphing of ideas, punctuation and proper spelling. However, the English language can be exceptionally difficult for ELL’s when it comes to the mechanics of spelling, due to the fact that it is made up of like sounding words known as a Homonym. The perfect example of a homonym is to, too, and two. Each of these three words differs from each other, but can cause great confusion when it comes to speech. So not only is tackling tricky words a tough skill to learn, ELL students also need to maintain focus on correct punctuation and writing techniques. In the written assignment of a Vietnamese ELL student, the student states “My mother’s name is ____.” This sentence demonstrated a phenomenal use of English mechanics by adding an apostrophe in order to show possession. Also, the sentence began and ended with correct written mechanics. The grading scale of mechanic on a rubric can range from insufficient in the result of little technical formatting; to excellent, being that there was an effective use of spelling, capitalization, punctuations,
In this chapter, Lynne Truss talks about the outdated and dreaded punctuation mark, the hyphen. The hyphen has caused controversy over whether or not it shuld be a part of the English Language today. The hyphen was traditionally used to split a word, and to show "that a word is unfinished and continues on the next line" (pg.146). This old style of punctuation is not liked by writers and readers across the board. Truss describes her experience with using hyphens as a disaster. She believed that "hyphen usage is a just bloody mess and is likely to get messier" (pg.149).
Elementary and high schools are not preparing their students well enough to understand the writing process, which mostly affect them during the transition from high school to college. It is clear that elementary and high school students don’t fully understand the five steps of writing the limitation of sentences per a paragraph and how to gather information from different sources and give credit to the source or cited.
It is recommended that modelled writing sessions do not extend for long periods of time as they can become too tedious and rote and the children can begin to lose interest (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). In a learning scenario where the class is increasing their spelling knowledge, a modelled teaching lesson could be the most fitting approach to ensure the child is learning how to spell words correctly the first time through teacher directed instruction (Fox & Vivas, 1984). Often educators will explain the thinking behind their doing; this is called ‘thinking aloud’, which encourages the children to think before they write to ensure that what they are about to write makes sense (Wray et al., 2000; Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). Additionally, when children are focusing on punctuation, the educator can take full control in a modelled setting and instruct the students explicitly on when to use commas and how punctuation affects the way their written literature is read (Fox & Vivas, 1984; Wray et al.,
5.) Why should students use standard punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar when emailing their professors?
...emic world you’re going to take with you in the real world and if learning these bad/ uneducated habits is what you learn in school then that translates into your work/personal life. Slowly but surely, you’ll end up wishing you had never ever used improper English in school. As John Humphrys stresses, “Now I find myself slipping into sloppy habits, abandoning capitol letters and using row of dots” (Humphrys, 75). What Humphrys is trying to get across is texting in these short abbreviated words it made him slip into the bad habit of not caring about the simplest of things in a sentence such as capital letters or even completed it since the row of dots is equivalent to that.
Strunk and White’s book The Elements of Style is a small, or “little,” as Strunk liked to say, book that covers all of the biggest, most important rules within the English language. Strunk and White broke down the most common stylistic errors and explained clearly and concisely why those errors are wrong and how to fix them. This book, while incredibly short, contains an immeasurable amount of information, ranging from how to use hyphens to the correct ways to use the word nor. The Elements of Style is an incredible guide that can help students, or anyone, really, navigate the world of proper grammar and diction. Information that can completely change how you communicate with the world—change for the better, I mean—is exceedingly valuable information.
However, this has greatly hindered our writing in the professional standpoint. With the ability to write simple phrases with poor grammar and quick, abbreviated words, casual writing established itself as another problem for individuals. In some instances, texting has been constantly used incorrectly where one friend told Truus that he “CANT BELIEVE U PUT APOSTROPHE IN HAIRDRESSERS”(Truss 496). During the text, he emphasized on the apostrophe in hairdressers. Although using an apostrophe is unnecessary, it is certainly important in a professional career. Even throughout the text, he did not write out you, but instead wrote it as an “U”. As a result, this short message can carry over to his writing and may appear in future resume and cover letter from habit. Even with the constant reminders to write correctly, individuals continue to write in short messages as they have grown slothful to write longer text. Even then, these habits carry over to their work and as depicted in Wiens’s company, individuals “can’t distinguish between “to” and “too” (Wiens 500). Due to an overuse of writing short texts, employers cannot distinguish simple phrases that would be otherwise taught in an elementary school class. In order to write professionally, it is important to constantly remind ourselves to write grammatically correct during any leisure activities. From there,
Grammar and punctuation is another importance in academic writing. Having inappropriate punctuation, grammar and spelling will cause other staff nurses to have a difficult time to analyse your notes and documents. Proper punc...
Ellipsis is a pervasive phenomenon in natural language.Since ellipsis is one of the different cohesive devices in English, its place will specify among other standards of textuality and its characteristics as a cohesive device.
Many literary critics are partial to essay titles with colons. They employ a catchy initial title followed by a more informative subtitle.
Owston, R. D, Murphy, S, & Wideman, H. H, (1992). [pdf]. The Effect of Word Processing on Students’ Writing Quality and Revision Strategies. Research in the teaching of English, 26(3). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40171308