Punctuation: Introduction

Many writers are only vaguely aware of the basic principles that determine the placement of commas, colons, semicolons, and other familiar punctuation marks. Key to becoming a punctuator par excellence is understanding why and where a particular piece of punctuation should be used. If you have simply sprinkled commas where you think they are needed and have fearfully avoided the semicolon because you do not know how to use it, rest assured: the following pages explain the whys of punctuation use.

Punctuation marks were invented to avoid confusion and congestion in the English sentence. Think of standard punctuation principles not as a set of rules but as providing road signs for the reader driving along the highway of your prose. To prevent the reader from taking a wrong turn or running off the road, and to keep parts of a sentence from colliding, you need to put those punctuation signposts in the right places.