Punctuation is to reading as intonation is to speech. Both are vital to convey the precise context and intent of a message. Incorrect use of punctuation marks cannot only alter but completely reverse the meaning of a sentence. It’s a daunting task to remember the rules of punctuation so follow these tricks and tips to hit all the right spots: 1. The Crafty Comma Commas cut sentences into meaningful groups and are used in three main situations.

• In lists e.g. The marketing, sales and human resource department were called to a meeting.
• To enclose additional ideas e.g. The managers, with their thinking caps in place, exchanged ideas to resolve the problem.
• To introduce an independent clause e.g. Because of time constraints, the meeting is postponed till Monday.

2. The Shy Semicolon  The semicolon is probably the most underused punctuation mark. It is used to piece together chunks that could stand alone. Generally, we use connecting words for this purpose but a semi colon is just as handy e.g. Jack’s presentation was good; Jill didn’t present well. 3. The Quotable Quotation marks  Quotation marks always go outside most other punctuation marks (full stops, commas, question marks, exclamation points), if they are a part of the material being quoted. Always use colons and semi colons outside the quotation marks. 4. The Aggravated Apostrophe The apostrophe is the most misused punctuation mark. It is also the most important one.

• In possessives, it shows who owns what – add ‘s with singular words and plural words not ending in “s”, add only ‘ with plural words ending in s.
• In contractions it shows where words have been shortened by dropping letters – “I will” becomes I’ll, “should not” becomes shouldn’t.

5. The Handy Hyphen  The hyphen is a very helpful punctuation mark. It can connect two words used to describe a noun. Generally when the compound follows the noun we don’t use a hyphen (e.g. this watch is water resistant), but, a hyphen is used when the compound precedes the noun (e.g. that’s a water-resistant watch). However, the easiest way to solve a punctuation problem is to avoid it. It’s always better to rearrange your words or change the sentence structure than end up with a confusing or clunky sentence. Sentence structure is just one of the many tools you will learn from our terrific 2-day workshop, Writing Dynamics â„¢. Writing Dynamics â„¢ gives you a writing system which allows you to get the best out of your business writing. [traininglist slug=”writing-dynamics-2-day”]  ]]>