Punctuation Matters Discussion

Now that you know how to use punctuation marks, let's see if you can easily identify punctuation problems and make corrections. For this discussion, you will choose a couple of sentences from the Review Your Writing Discussion in Unit 4 of the ESL001 course and practice punctuating sentences according to punctuation rules in English.

At the start of the course, we reviewed the use of end-of-sentence punctuation and some common internal punctuation marks. Now that you know how to use punctuation marks, let's see if you can easily identify punctuation problems and make corrections.

Instructions

For this discussion, look through the responses to the Review Your Writing Discussion in Unit 4 of the ESL001 course and choose two to three sentences from any paragraph. Then, identify any missing or incorrectly used punctuation, such as commas, full stops, question marks, and others. Finally, re-write any incorrectly punctuated sentences and explain how using correct punctuation helped clarify the meaning of the sentence.

Share your answers and see what kind of samples your classmates selected. If you wish, reply to your classmates with feedback or suggestions about their submissions.

Example

Here are some sentences I found in the ESL001 writing review forum:

Usually I wake up at 7am and after that I read my Bible then I wash my face and eat my breakfast next at 9am I usually start all my activities, I need to reply the email/message and I need to do some job and I will finish at 5pm and after that I went back home.

This description uses only one comma and one full stop. However, there are many sentences included in the description, and each one must end with a full stop. Also, there are some introductory words used, such as "usually" and "next", so commas should also be used to separate them from the rest of the sentence.

This is how I would punctuate the description to improve text clarity:

Usually, I wake up at 7 am, and after that, I read my Bible. Then, I wash my face and eat my breakfast. Next,) at 9 am, I usually start all my activities. I need to reply to the email/message, and I need to do some job, and I will finish at 5 pm. And after that, I went back home.

Notes

Sample sentences from Wednesday, May 8, 2024, 12:56 AM; https://learn.saylor.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=60903