The punctuation tag has no wiki summary.
8
votes
2answers
143 views
Overuse of bullet points
I collaborate with someone who insists on making every sentence (or two) in a business document into a bullet point, by prefacing it with a bullet.
This is typically done across a multi-page ...
5
votes
4answers
291 views
How many commas is too many?
I find myself often in writing using too many commas, but then going through and editing many of them back out again or restructuring to use full-stops.
Is there a rule of thumb I've forgotten from ...
4
votes
6answers
490 views
Need help to rephrase this sentence to prevent a run-on
I'm writing a narrative and am having a problem structuring the order of events. Here is what I have:
Jamie had an 8 am flight so she was out of the house just after 6.
Leaving me to wake up, ...
4
votes
4answers
559 views
A tricky serial semi-colon
A serial comma is used to separate a list of items:
For breakfast, we had ham, eggs, and toast.
A serial semi-colon is used when items in the list have commas:
For breakfast, we had ham, ...
4
votes
1answer
328 views
When to use the em dash (—) in fiction writing?
I always see the em dash (—) in fiction writing.
Here are some example from Haruki Murakami's After Dark:
Komugi comes in and takes something from one of the cartons piled
against the wall—a ...
4
votes
5answers
354 views
Using dashes in writing dialogue
Does anyone use em dashes (or two hyphens) to denote speakers in dialogue passages? Joyce does this as does William Gaddis. Many others. I practice it, but my only "conceptual understanding" is that ...
4
votes
1answer
194 views
Should I be using commas to suggest/enforce cadence?
I always think of commas as indicating pauses in speech, and vice versa.
So I was surprised the other day when I saw somebody's typed-out Pledge of Allegiance, which looked like this:
"I pledge ...
3
votes
3answers
271 views
How would one use punctuation to indicate tone changes?
I'm imagining this sort of statement:
He's a... different... sort of person, I suppose.
Some people would pronounce 'different' in that sentence as though it was followed by a question mark, but ...
2
votes
1answer
197 views
When to use single quotes in narrative writing?
I understand there's a certain element of stylistic freedom in using quotes, double quotes, or neither.
But what are the specific cases when single quotes are generally recommended?
2
votes
1answer
153 views
Software to change American punctuation to British
My apologies if this is off topic.
American and British writing have different punctuation styles. Is there any software that can change American style punctuation to British? I am referring to ...
1
vote
6answers
259 views
Do parentheses inhibit clarity?
I find it easier to write many things with parentheses, but I don't know if this is considered good practice. I would expect some might say that parentheses are indicative of excessive digression and ...
1
vote
1answer
123 views
Please advise on this comma among semi-colons and provide a more concise sentence
I created this question for two reasons:
I want to know if it is proper to place a comma after the word and (in bold) below.
This sentence is kind of clunky, like many of my sentences, and it helps ...
1
vote
3answers
96 views
Punctuation and capitalisation in poetry [duplicate]
I'm writing a poem entirely without commas, periods, colons, dashes, emdashes, etc.
However, near the end of the poem I name a city and I want to capitalise it.
On one hand, I think it would be ...
1
vote
2answers
184 views
Should I put colons with second-level titles?
I'm writing a documentation for an eGovernment project, so the document I'm writing is a scientific document. It contains some big ideas, each having some subideas, with each subidea having a number ...
1
vote
3answers
180 views
How to use parentheses
Parentheses have many uses; I find myself reaching for them often. Increasingly though, I realise I can convey the same meaning without parentheses with little or only minor loss in succinctness. ...
1
vote
0answers
112 views
Parenthetical phrases within dialog [closed]
I'm curious about the history and use of parenthetical phrases within dialog. I offer two contrasting examples:
An example of an "unvoiced" parenthetical phrase inside dialog from Pride and ...
0
votes
1answer
94 views
How to elegantly convey the finer nuances of language in written form
I am fascinated by the idea of how to convey, in the written form, as much detail of expressive nuance as you originally intended in your head (i.e. what you hear when first coming up with it). I ...
0
votes
1answer
48 views
Comma between the following clauses in AP Style?
The AP style says that a comma is not needed between two clauses that have the same subject. However, it would become ambiguous if I removed the comma fromt the following:
When you walk straight ...
