In addition to my passion for faith in Christ and socio-political issues, I love language. I originally didn’t intend to include language posts on this blog except for book reviews. However, I recently stumbled across this website called “The Visual Communication Guy” that just sent me a link to a well-designed resource explaining how to use punctuation.
Punctuation may seem to be a boring subject, but those little marks play an important role in communication, as British author Lynne Truss humorously expounded in her bestseller, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. (Warning for my more sensitive readers: Lynne Truss does get a bit crude at times.) For young readers, she wrote Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!
The page on “The Visual Communication Guy” website shows pictures of the 14 punctuation marks that the English language uses. Click on one of the graphics, and a page describing that mark appears.
For instance, I looked at the brackets description, an infrequently used punctuation mark. The author offers an overview of the mark then sections to click on for more detailed information: “Five Ways to Use Brackets,” “Terms You Need to Know,” “Use #1: Insert Comments by the Author,” “Use #2: Modify Quoted Nouns or Pronouns,” “Use #3: Insert [sic] to Show Original Error,” “Use #4 Identify Added Emphasis,” and “Use #5: Replace Parentheses in Parentheses.”
Inside each of these sections, the author elaborates in easy language how to use the punctuation mark with a description, an application, and an example.
This resource would be useful for students or for anyone who wants his writing to communicate well.
Lorinda's Ponderings 