English Writing Skills- 5

Good, correct use of punctuation is very important in your writing. Punctuation often plays the same role as variations in your voice do when you are speaking: full stops, colons, semi-colons and commas indicate various lengths of pauses; a question mark obviously indicates a question, whereas a rise or fall in your voice would do this. Lack of punctuation, therefore, or incorrect use of it, will result in your writing being difficult to follow, and your reader having to do unnecessary work. It could, in fact, be argued that correct punctuation is more important than correct grammar in making your writing easy to read.

Here are the names of the different types of punctuation, followed by notes on each.

[ . ] full stop

[ , ] comma

[ ; ] semi-colon[ : ] colon

[ ? ] question mark

[ ! ] exclamation mark [ " " ] quotation marks

[ ' ] apostrophe

[ ( ) ] brackets[ _ ] dash

[ / ] forward slash

Full stops 
These obviously indicate the end of a sentence and must always be followed by a CAPITAL letter. Make sure you don't split a sentence unnecessarily with a full stop, creating what are known as sentence fragments. 

Commas 
The biggest punctuation problem is the incorrect use of commas: not using them, or using them in the wrong place. Remember that commas should be used to indicate to your reader a break in the flow of writing. If you write a long sentence without commas, then it may be very difficult to follow. 

Semi-colons 
Semi-colons create a break in a sentence somewhere between a full stop and a comma. If you're unsure about their use, don't worry: it's never necessary to use them. They are used to connect sentences with very similar meanings or which are closely linked; in the following examples, however, the sentences could be written separately, or connected with a word like whereas: 

Economics is regarded as a Social Science; Engineering is an Applied Science. 
It is a thriving department; cuts in funding do not seem to have had an effect on them.

Semi-colons can also be used to separate long items within a list: 
A balanced diet such include regular intake of carbohydrates, such as pasta or bread; fruit and vegetables, preferably fresh and ideally organic; meat, although excessive intake of red meat should be avoided; ... 

Colons 
Colons can be useful to add flexibility and variety to your writing, but it is rarely (or never) necessary to use them. They are perhaps most frequently used to introduce a long list, table or figure; or maybe a long quotation separated from the rest of your text. Shorter quotations are preceded by a comma. They might also introduce some examples: 

The data is presented here in tabulated form: 

Question marks 
These always come right at the end of the question sentence. Remember, though, that too many direct questions are best avoided in academic writing; indirect questions do not need a question mark. 

Exclamation marks 
Unless quoting what someone has directly said to you in an interview, avoid using exclamation marks in your academic writing. They are too informal.

Quotation marks (inverted commas) 
Don't worry too much about whether to use single or double marks, but do make sure you are consistent in your use. They can be used to indicate that a word is being used in a special way; perhaps if you are being ironic, or making a simile, or simply naming something: 

Ganguly (1988) described the process as 'asymmetric'. 
The behaviour of the English 'supporters' was despicable.

A lot of native English speakers are getting very confused about the humble little apostrophe. 
Apostrophes have two distinct uses in English:

To indicate possession 
To indicate a missing letter or letters in a contraction 

Note that apostrophes should only very rarely (if ever) be used to indicate plurals 

Possession
An apostrophe is used to indicate possession - that something belongs to somebody or something. For example:
The committee's decision (=the decision of the committee)
The President's mistake (=the mistake of the President)

Contractions
In spoken English and informal writing, contractions (e.g. I've) are extremely common: you will in fact sound very strange if you don't use them when you're speaking. The apostrophe indicates where the missing letters should be:
there's = there is
he's = he has or he is 
NOTE: Contractions should NOT be used in formal academic writing. Always write out the full form of the words

Plurals
Apostrophes are only used in plurals in one or two special cases (see below). In recent years, however, in this country, and also in other English speaking countries such as Australia and the USA, we have seen the emergence of what is sometimes called the"greengrocers' apostrophe": the use of the apostrophe to show a plural, as in: 
Apple's 40p a pound 

Brackets
Apart from in references, it is best to try to avoid brackets. Their use is bad style, they can make your writing difficult to follow, and are never necessary. Commas usually serve exactly the same purpose. 

Dashes
Don't use them; they are too informal. 

Forward slashes/strokes
Apart from internet addresses or other special uses, don't use them. Instead of cities/towns/villages you should write something like cities, towns or villages.