Punctuation 1

In this blog I will be addressing my own common punctuation mistakes, commas, unnecessary commas, and use of the semicolons.

stevepb "mistake" accessed via Pixabay
Uploaded 10/5/15 CC0 Public Domain

Unnecessary comma

Commas have always plagued my writing.  Even when making the concerted effort to avoid adding a surplus of commas, there are always a few that peak through the cracks.  My most common mistake is separating a concluding adverb clause that is essential to the meaning of the sentence.  It was also helpful to see specific examples of the difference between adding a comma before a dependent clause and without a comma.  I had not really realized how different the meaning of a sentence can change with or without a comma.


Comma

This section was equally as important, as I had not realized how many different instances commas were required.  I do not focus on grammatical analysis in my writing as much as I should, so seeing how many different grammatical settings were created by such a tiny punctuation was pretty interesting.  I did not find any particular situations that were brand new to me, but I had never seen them all written out.  As I mentioned above, the difference between separating independent clauses and dependent clauses is something I can definitely be aware of more in my writing.

Semicolon

For some reason, I have a habit of avoiding sentences that require semicolons or colons.  Possibly because a teacher somewhere down the line told me to simplify my sentences and avoid such "complicated" punctuation.  I think it is fair to say that said teacher was not accurate and semicolons are in fact useful.  It was nice to see the exact definition of a semicolon and examples as a reminder to how I can add the semicolon in my writing correctly.

REFLECTION:

I reviewed Alex and Chelsea's essays.

Commas are definitely an common issue, especially because they seem like such a minor punctuation.  However in Alex's essay, a common issue was a large amount of short sentences.  For example,

"Again their facts and logic make for a very good argument.  They lay out real life numbers that cannot be argued or falsified. As they continue to lay out statistic their points get stronger and stronger and the audience starts to buy in more and more making them more and more effective."

This can easily be combined into a sentence separated by commas in order to avoid repeating a similar statement multiple times.

In Chelsea's essay, the order of sentences was the main issue, "Depending on who was speaking, changes in the soundtrack would occur." I find that that flipping the sentence to "Changes in the soundtrack would occur depending on who was speaking" to be a lot more clear. The comma separates what she is talking about and the explanation, but combining the two creates a forward momentum to the next sentence.