University of Nebraska-Lincoln students in one of ACES board member Sue Burzynski Bullard
Need to conquer the comma, get a handle on hyphen or decipher the dash?
Or are you thinking about all out extermination of the doubled exclamation point?
Than you might want to start your crusade at the National Punctuation Day website.
Saturday, Sept. 24, is the eighth annual National Punctuation Day. And while those of us who work with words might see the day as a opportunity for a bit of fun (and cookies), it’s also an opportunity to promote the proper use of marks that help clarify the meaning of written material.
Punctuation is important. As the Purdue Online Writing Lab says in its punctuation section: “When speaking, we can pause or change the tone of our voices to indicate emphasis. When writing, we use punctuation to indicate these places of emphases.”
Purdue’s OWL site is a great resource for clarification on punctuation issues. Other online resources are listed on the National Punctuation Day resources page.
So on Saturday, don’t just cringe at those unnecessary quotation marks (“Sale today on ham shank’s”), educate.
