LECO52032, Muhammad, Mechanics of writing.

                       Mechanics of writing.

Punctuation helps the reader to make sense of what has been written. When we speak, we use not only words but also body language, voice tone and emphasis, and pauses to convey our message. When we write, on the other hand, we need to use punctuation marks to help the reader understand our meaning.

Important punctuation marks:

Comma (,)

         Use the comma to separate ideas in a sentence, to make the meaning clearer:

        1. When joining two sentences with a conjunction.

        2. When adding extra information to the basic sentence.

                 For example:

•    The woman, who was feeling tired, went home.
•    The student, who came from Europe, adjusted quickly to the New Zealand academic culture.

       3. When listing a series of items: 

                       For example: 

•    A pen, lined paper, and a calculator were required for the exam.

Colon (:)

       Colons can be used to: 

        1. Introduce a list.

        2. Introduce a quotation.

        3. Expand an idea.

                     For example:

• Both parties agreed on the final result: There would be increased participation in meetings by all those involved.

      4. Add emphasis. The colon acts like a pointer.

•  He started the business for one reason only: money.                      

     Semi Colon 

          The semi colon has two main uses:

        1. Join two complete sentences that are closely connected in meaning.

        2. Listing complex items that contain commas.

     Double quotation mark("      ")   

        1. To quote something. 

        2. To show quotation inside a quotation. 

        3. To set off titles of essays, journals, and magazine articles, poems and short stories.         

     Single quotation mark ('    ')

         1. To emphasize a word or a term.

         2. To show a quotation inside a quotation.

     Apostrophe( ' )

          1. Contraction, to show that letters have been left out of a word.

                    NB. Contractions are not used in academic writing.

           2. Possession, to show that something belongs to someone or something. 

                The apostrophe always comes directly after the name of the owner of the object, followed by               what they own.  

             For example:

•     a student’s essay = the essay belongs to a student 
•     next week’s timetable = the timetable belonging to next week

             NB. Do not use the apostrophe with personal pronouns: his, hers, its, theirs, yours, ours.

    Parentheses (  )

         1.Use parentheses to enclose information that clarifies or used it as an aside. 

 For example:

• He finally answered (after taking five minutes to think) that he did not understand the question.

Commas are more likely to follow parentheses than precede them.

For example:                                                                                                                                       When he got home (it was already dark outside), he fixed dinner.

Brackets [  ]

   Brackets are far less common than parentheses, and they are only used in special cases. Brackets (like single quotation marks) are used exclusively within quoted material. The brackets can be used by the writer when he wants to clarify something written in the main text so that there is no chance of the reader getting confused that what he is talking about.                                          

For example:

• I am reading the second chapter of this novel [Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’] which I bought yesterday.

Dash

 There are two kinds of dashes, the en dash, and the em dash (long dash). The en dash is a symbol (–) that is slightly wider than a hyphen (-). The em dash (—) is twice as long as the en dash (–).   

1. The em dash (—) :

•  Used to show a break in a sentence.
•  Used to create emphasis.
•  Indicates a sudden change of thought in a sentence.

For examples:                                                                                                                                                   I had a great vacation in Bali — oh! Is that your dog? He’s so cute!

      2. The en dash (–):

•     Expresses a period of time.

    For example:                  

                He lived in this town from 1998–2009.

•  Used to indicate a range of numbers.
•  Used with scores.

•  Used to indicate distance.

            For example:

            Europe–USA is a long flight.

                                                                                                                                                            Hyphen (-) 

• Put the hyphen between two parts of a compound word.
• Insert a hyphen before a suffix or after the prefix.
• Compound numbers less than 100 are split with hyphen. 

Capitalisation 

• Capitalise the title of the book.
• Capitalise the initial letters of the words in the title of the article or essay, chapters of a book, and titles of the journals.
• Capitalise the first word after a period or a full-stop.
• Capitalise days of the week and months of the year, brand names, historical events, name of institutions, nicknames, races, nationalities, and religions.