Experimenting: Grammar and Punctuation

Grammar and punctuation are hard concepts to learn and teach. Maybe the use of techniques aren't terribly hard themselves, but explaining exactly how to use them and when to use them is another story. My main goal for this semester is to master the use of punctuation and be able to explain each comma, semi-colon, colon, etc., to my future students with ease.

The DASH

A common misconception is that the dash and hyphen are the same thing. While the dash and hyphen definitely do not serve the same purpose, they do have one thing in common: they cause confusion.

Example: "And yet, when the car was finally delivered—nearly three months after it was ordered—she decided she no longer wanted it, leaving the dealer with an oddly equipped car that would be difficult to sell.”

This “em dash” is used in place of the comma. The sentence could also read: “And yet, when the car was finally delivered, nearly three months after it was ordered, she decided she no longer wanted it, leaving the dealer with an oddly equipped car that would be difficult to sell.” Em dashes can be used in place of parenthesis and colons as well. The em dash can also be used in place of letters in a word. An example of this is: “Mr. J-- testified that the defendant yelled at the woman.”

COMMAS

Commas are probably one of the most used punctuation, but maybe also the most misunderstood. Commas are so common and useful that sometimes they are overused. Do we need, a comma, in every situation? It's important to understand when commas are needed and when they're just unnecessary.

Source: Spiro

http://www.spiro.ir/photo/

Date accessed: 1/18/15

SENTENCE STRUCTURE

How boring is it to read a paragraph with all the same sentence structure? How hard is it to stay engaged when there is no variety? How can one change their sentence patterns to keep readers interested? Exactly; sentence structure is an important skill to master in order to produce effective writing.

Example: “Men and women, young and old, looked forward to the New Yam Festival because it began the season of plenty-the new year. On the last night before the festival, yams of the old year were all disposed of by those who still had them. The new year must begin with tasty, fresh yams and not the shriveled and fibrous crop of the previous year. All cooking pots, calabashes and wooden bowls were throughly washed, especially wooden mortar in which yam was pounded.” - Things Fall Apart (p.36).

This excerpt from “Things Fall Apart” is effectively written because the sentences all vary in length, structure, and word strength. If the author, Chinua Achebe, would have had a list as every sentence, or no versatility/punctuation at all, the paragraph wouldn't have been as great.

Favorite sentence structures

Semi-colon use- the use of semi-colons can be exceptionally beautiful; they add a touch of skill that not everyone can master, including me.

Ellipsis- not every punctuation can take the place of an ellipsis. They add a drawn out explanation, almost like a surprise that you can't really get from a comma, dash, or even exclamation point.