Punctuation, Part 1

This post will review topics covered in the "Punctuation" section of the 'Rulers for Writers' book.

The Semicolon

I chose this section due to the fact that I occasionally confuse the use of semicolons versus colons. Semicolons are used for closely related clauses that have a clear relation without a conjunction necessarily being required, and require two independent clauses. It essentially takes the place of the omitted conjunction. It can also be used for items in a series that has internal punctuation. Transitional phrases for semicolons are preceded by the semicolon and are usually followed by a comma. While I was aware of most of these things, a review of what semicolons should and should not be used for was a good refresher.

The Colon

Again, I decided a review of this form of punctuation would be helpful for me. Colons are used after an independent clause to draw attention to the next thing that will follow. That could be a list, an appositive, a quote, or a summary/explanation. It also has conventional functions. A greeting in a letter, telling time, proportions, titles and subtitles, bibliographies, etc. It is different from the semicolon, because the colon must be preceded by an independent clause but does not necessarily need one after.

Other Punctuation

This includes dashes, slashes, parenthesis, etc. Dashes are used to set aside/bring attention to information that needs emphasis, introduce a shift or a dramatic change in tone or thought. Parenthesis offer supplemental information, while brackets are used for things like paraphrasing. Slashes were ones I was less familiar with. Slashes can be used to separate up to two or three lines of poetry. More than that should become a quotation, which I did not know. That is their basic proper grammatical use.


REFLECTION

I first read Swati's draft. Not only was her essay very thorough and well-written, she had nearly flawless usage of of the punctuation I reviewed. For example, her use of parenthesis was well used to give extra information. " 'But growing usable tissue in the lab is notoriously difficult; the advent of 3-D printers that can print ink made of cells has offered a ray of hope” (para. 12)' " Her addition of the parenthesis to lead the reader to a specific paragraph was very well done.


I also read Victoria's draft. Victoria had good punctuation, and even used colons in her title like I reviewed in this section. Her title "Stem Cell Controversy: Ethics or Science?" uses the colon perfectly. It gave me ideas of how to use the colon similarly in my own paper. She had some small comma errors, but nothing that was unfixable or clearly wrong.