Punctuation Help: 3 Common Mistakes and the Ultimate Solution! By Jane Sumerset At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

You can consult a good punctuation guide for your writing tasks, but it's still easy to get confused about certain things. Learning good punctuation skills can go a long way to making you a better and more persuasive writer. Many people barely learn them in school and quickly forget. Yet writing is not one of those skills that you learn in school and never use in real life. Most of us have to write every day, for work, our business or social reasons. See if you make any of these common punctuation mistakes:

1. Incorrect Use of Quotation Marks

Many people use quotation marks when they mean to highlight something. This is not correct. Quotation marks are meant to indicate dialogue in fiction, as in, "Let's go to the movies," Joe said to Mary.

Another use of quotation marks is to indicate the title of a book or film. However, this is going out of style and is not necessary. You can use italics, as well as capitalizing the words, as in Star Wars, The Simpsons, or Romeo And Juliet.

Quotations are not meant to be used to stress or highlight something, as in "On Sale Today!" Use bold text, italics or larger print for this.

2. Extra Apostrophes

Apostrophes are used to indicate possession, as in John's house or Susan's car.

They also indicate contractions, as in "can't" for "cannot," or "they've" for "they have."

There is no need to use apostrophes to indicate plural, as in "Car's For Sale."

This is incorrect, though commonly done.

3. Run On Sentences

Commas, and the word "and" help to clarify sentences and break up long sentences. Long sentences can also be separated into two or more sentences.

Consider this:

"I woke up late this morning was late for the bus and got to work late and missed an important meeting."

Without commas, this sentence is awkward. It can be rewritten to read:

"I woke up late this morning, and was late for the bus. I got there late and missed an important meeting."

Remember to consult with a punctuation guide if you are unsure about something.

After getting to know the three most typical mistakes. How familiar are you with English punctuation rules? If you still think it's way to complicated, consider getting an automated checking -a software that automatically corrects your spelling, grammar and punctuation as you write.

Automatically "Enforces" Punctuation Rules

This software uses a sophisticated system called Natural Language Processing (NLP), which reads your sentences and compares them to a stored database of correctly written English texts. This enables it to correct your spelling. grammar and punctuation mistakes in a way much more sophisticated than a simple spell checker, which only reads single words.

Suggests New Words

In addition to making sure your writing is in accord with grammar and punctuation rules, and correcting your spelling, NLP software also suggests better words for you to use. If you have ever used a thesaurus, a book that lists synonyms, you can appreciate how easy it would be to have a software program to perform this function for you. In essence, you are expanding your vocabulary when you use it, as you have instant access to new words.

Improves Your Writing and Saves You Time

This software can instantly improve the quality of your writing, and make you more efficient. You can write faster and not worry about making mistakes or having to go back and proofread for grammar, spelling or punctuation errors. This will enable you to get more done, and make the work, emails, reports or term papers you send out more clear and precise.

So, if you don't want to worry about all those grammar and punctuation rules, you may want to consider this automated solution to your writing needs!

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