LEC052024. Jesly Sebastian. "Mechanics of Writing"

 Mechanics of Writing

    Mechanics of writing include rules of written language such as punctuation, capitalisation and spelling. Appropriate use of these mechanics makes the reading process quick, easy and accurate. Identifying the different mechanics of writing and understanding their functions is crucial to prevent mechanical errors in orthography. Punctuation errors are a common type of orthographic error. 

1. Punctuations

There are several punctuations used in writing. Full stops, commas, colons, semicolons, exclamation marks, question marks, inverted commas, apostrophes, hyphens and parentheses are a few of them.

•   A full stop, also known as a period is one of the common punctuations. The most common use of it is to end sentences, namely declarative sentence. For example, 'The class started on Tuesday.' It comes after abbreviations that consist of the first part of a name and also in email and website addresses. For example, Sept. Thurs.
•  Question mark usually marks the end of a question. It is also used in brackets when the writer believes that a statement is doubtful or questionable.
• The comma indicates or marks a break in between a sentence. It is a punctuation mark that separates words, clauses or ideas within a sentence. 
• A semicolon joins two independent clauses without using conjunctions like and. Using a comma in a place where a semicolon is needed is a punctuation error. This error is called the 'comma splice'. 
• Exclamation mark marks the end of an exclamatory sentence. We find it usually with sentence fragments or sudden interjections. An example is as follows, 'Congratulations! You cleared the test in the first attempt.'
• The colon separates two parts of a sentence where the first part leads on to the second. It also introduces a quotation in a sentence. Colons also separate subtitle from a title. For example, 'He got what he worked for: he earned the promotion.'
• The apostrophe indicates the omission of one or more letters from a word.  Examples are: Won't, shan't, they're and might've. Apostrophe also shows possession. For example, 'Lord Hector's castle.'
• Parentheses set off information within a text or paragraph. They can enclose a single word, a phrase or an entire sentence. The words inside parentheses provide extra information about something else in the sentence. For example, 'They practised (the whole night) for the event.'
• The hyphen joins words or parts of words. It is not interchangeable with any other form of dashes. Entities connected using a hyphen work together as a single unit of meaning. For example, 'It is a kid-friendly game.'
• Inverted commas separate a group of words from the rest of the text. Single inverted commas and double inverted commas quote what is said by someone or a sentence taken from a book. Besides, we use single inverted commas to draw attention to a word or to refer to titles of books, magazines, poems, etc. Examples are: "The report was on 'The Hindu'."
• Ellipsis is a sequence of three full stops or dots. It indicates that some words, phrases or sentences have been omitted from a quoted passage as they are irrelevant in the given context. The sentence, " Today, after long days of thought, we arrived at a final decision." can be shortened with the use of the ellipsis as follows. " Today...we arrived at a final decision."

As punctuation marks are small and easy to miss; we usually add spacing after them. The spacing rules vary depending on the writing styles followed.

2. Capitalisation

Capital letters, sometimes also called upper case letters; usually comes as the first letter of sentences, names and place names. Capital letters come as the first letters of the main words in titles of books, magazines, newspapers, people and institutions. Here is an example; 'My friend is British, but she speaks French too.'

3. Spelling

Spelling is key to successful writing practice. The English language is developing and changing constantly. Along with the British and American variations in spelling; there are spelling rules and exceptions. 

• Plurals of most nouns are obtained by adding -s to the end. Words like books, journeys, pages, pens and steps are examples.
• When adding suffixes to words that end with a consonant plus -y, the final 'y' is changed to 'i'. Thus; 'Beauty' becomes 'Beautiful'. 
• For getting the plurals of words ending with an 'o'; -es is added after the 'o'. Echoes, buffaloes, etc. are examples. 

Along with these rules, there are several more that are important in the aspect of spelling in English.