Punctuation, Part 2

In this post, I will discuss three more topics I read about in the Punctuation section of the Rules for Writers book: the comma, quotation marks, and the apostrophe.

Chan, Chris. "Badly punctuated sign." 03/22/2008 via Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

The Comma

• After reading this section, I realized that my use of commas has been pretty spot-on, probably due to my excessive reading before I entered middle school. I know how to use commas in mostly every scenario that was mentioned, but reviewing definitely did no harm to my mind and its knowledge of how to properly use commas. 

Quotation Marks

• In this section, the proper use of quotation marks was discussed. I thought I knew how to properly use quotation marks, but there was still things discussed that surprised me, such as not to use quotations when quoting excessively long sections. I know how to properly use quotations in every other scenario discussed, though.

The Apostrophe

• This section addresses the uses of the apostrophe. I always get confused as to how to properly use an apostrophe, so this section definitely helped clarify that aspect. This section helped the most, and it was beneficial in such a way that can be applied to my writing. 

Example 1, comma: "To prevent this from happening to others she is encouraging others to get tested for the BRCA gene."

to

"To prevent this from happening to others, she is encouraging others to get tested for the BRCA gene."

This serves to appropriately separate the dependent clause from the independent.

Example 2, apostrophe: "The combination of ethos and pathos used in the article works effectively and achieves the authors goal of getting people concerned and informed about the BRCA gene."

to

"The combination of ethos and pathos used in the article works effectively and achieves the author's goal of getting people concerned and informed about the BRCA gene."
This serves to appropriately distribute ownership in the context.