III. PUNCTUATION & OTHER CONVENTIONS

Think of punctuation as the most wonderful help to both reader and writer. Reading anything unpunctuated is so difficult as to be hardly worth doing, rather like playing tennis on a court without a net.

Writing can be much more exact and spirited when punctuation is used deftly. Punctuation enables the writer to convey, and the reader to receive, exactly the message intended.

Consider these sentences:
Azli, the police officer, acted conceitedly.
The name ‘Azli’ and the label ‘police officer’ are equally important. If either of them were dropped the message would be almost the same but the information, less.

Azli (the police officer) acted conceitedly.
This time the information ‘Azli’ is a police officer is slid in, but of minor importance. The name ‘Azli’ must be kept but the incidental information in brackets could be dropped without much loss. The brackets do the same thing in writing as a dropped voice would do in speaking.

Azli - the police officer - acted conceitedly.
This time the fact that the person who acted conceitedly is a police officer, risking his reputation, his job, and the safety of those he should be protecting, is stressed. The dashes hint at shock. The voice is either raised or hushed to draw great attention to the words between them.

Such is the power of punctuation. The following suggestions may help you use it more skilfully. Especially make yourselves familiar with semicolons and colons which are so useful in effective business writing and so unnecessary almost everywhere else.


COLONS are used for balance.
1. They introduce a list, which follows on separate lines e.g.
The farm comprises:
a. two acres of horticultural land
b. twenty acres of forest
c. five hundred acres of palm old trees.

2. They introduce a list on the same line e.g.
The farm comprises the following: two acres…

Notice that this time the part before the colon must be an independent clause, one that can standalone and still make sense.

3. They show extreme opposites e.g.
She succeeded brilliantly; he failed dismally.


SEMICOLONS show a strong break.
1. They can separate items in a complex list e.g.
I ordered chicken rice with soup; mixed vegetables, with plenty of mushrooms; bubur chacha, accompanied by sliced mango, pineapple and oranges’ and a tall glass of iced tea.

2. They can separate independent clauses, which are linked in thought e.g.
Xia Ming studied science; she intended to be a botanist. Kar Mun took management studies; she hoped to be an accountant.

The twins enrolled in social science; they both wanted to be high school teachers.
OR
The bus had crashed into the train; however, the damage was minimal.

Sometimes both colons and semicolons are useful in a single sentence. The example given above could well be worded this way:

I ordered the following: chicken rice with soup; mixed vegetables, with plenty of mushrooms; bubur chacha, accompanied by sliced mango, pineapple and oranges; and a tall glass of iced tea.


COMMAS are used to break the flow of a sentence. Most are optional but they are mandatory for 5 kinds of construction:

1. To separate introductory, long clauses e.g.
After the chemist had checked his findings rigorously, he wrote his paper.

2. To indicate non-restrictive clauses (ref: COMMON ERRORS 18 & 19; 1st Feb 2006) e.g.
The engineer, who has travelled overseas, is now employed at Singapore.

Without the 2 commas, the words who has travelled overseas are indispensable. With them, the information who has travelled overseas could be dropped without affecting the main message of the sentence.

3. To indicate that 2 nouns both refer to the same person or object. Sometimes these are called nouns in apposition. E.g. Lennie Brideson, the physicist, has been awarded a grant.

4. To show that adverbs go with a whole clause e.g. I believe, however, that the results should be checked.

Notice the difference between such a sentence and one in which an adverb simply belongs with an adjective e.g. However hard he works, he never catches up.

5. To set off information which is extra to the main thread of the sentence e.g.
Speeding on his skateboard, Zamri crashed into the fence.

Remember that all commas, colons and semicolons break rather than join. They should not interrupt a sentence but rather show the pattern within it.