Punctuation, Part 1

In this blog post, I will be discussing 3 topics I read about in Rules For Writers.

"Pen Writing Notes". 1/31/15 via Pexels. Creative Commons License.

The Semicolon
I'm pretty conscious of my grammar and I hate always using commas, so I felt like I should read the section on semicolons. I try to use semicolons pretty often, so I have some understanding of when they're appropriate to use. What I found out that I didn't already know about semicolons is that they can be used to split up separate lists of things that are already separated by commas (separating already separated things). This should be really useful to me when writing.

The Colon
Like I said, I hate always having to use commas, so I thought I might as well read the section on colons too. What I found out about colons is that they are more formal than dashes and that you can't use a colon between a preposition and the subject. I've made that mistake before so I'm happy I read this section.

Quotations
I feel like quotes are kind of thrown around some words if you don't know what to do with it, but you know that something does have to be done. I'm guilty of this too so I wanted to brush up on when using quotations is allowed. I had no idea that you couldn't use quotes in a humorous way...I've definitely done that on more than a few occasions. Also, I didn't know you couldn't use quotes around slang, because I've always done that. This was probably the most useful thing I read about.


Reflection
After peer editing Allison's and Aaron's rough drafts, I noticed a few things like quotations especially and common errors with them. Now that I know how quotations should be placed I was able to help them both with that. Neither really used semicolons or colons that I noticed, so not much can be said about that.

From Aaron's draft:
Well… you don’t need to know that much about computers to recognize the names “4chan” and “Anonymous.”
Quotation marks can't be used to refer to names of things like that.

From Allison's draft:

Example Body Paragraph:

While Lutz successfully uses data and personal stories to her advantage, she fails when it comes to creating an overall professional piece.
No quotations were added although a new paragraph/indentation began.