img src='http://rss.buysellads.com/img.php?z=1259904k=f7b7931ec28da9e4ff2580bfd4eddb18a=29093c=482379593' border='0' alt='' //a/pbr /pimg class="alignright size-full wp-image-29094" src="http://freelanceswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/photodune-1718725-exclamation-xs.jpg" alt="" width="300" //p
pI couldn?t help but chuckle at this recent story from a href="http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2012/04/26/how_e_mail_and_texting_have_driven_people_to_overuse_exclamation_points/?page=2"emThe Boston Globe/em/a on the overuse of exclamation points./p
pRemember when email first came into prevalence? I do. Suddenly writing in all caps meant you were virtually yelling at someone. Typing made it easier to span style="text-decoration: underline"EMPHASIZE YOUR WORDS/span in a way that a href="http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-news/commentary-analysis/shorthand-words-to-eliminate/"handwriting/a just couldn?t. With a quick touch of command + b, u, or i your words could be strongbolded, /strongspan style="text-decoration: underline"underlined/span, and emitalicized/em. Fancy!/p
pChristopher Muther, the author of the piece I read in emThe Boston Globe/em, blames two men with the overuse of exclamation points in society today./p
blockquotepIn 2008, they wrote a book called ?Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home.? It created a minor sensation, partially because the authors condoned the use of exclamation points./p
p???I?ll see you at the conference,? is a simple statement of fact,? they wrote. ???I?ll see you at the conference!? lets your fellow conferee know that you?re excited and pleased about the event.? ?a href="http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2012/04/26/how_e_mail_and_texting_have_driven_people_to_overuse_exclamation_points/?page=2"Christopher Muther/a/p/blockquote
pOne Boston University psycholinguist quoted in the story says that exclamation points can ?mitigate the brusqueness of a brief reply by indicating the writer?s enthusiasm, sincerity, surprise??/p
pI recently wrote a blog post on the a href="http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-news/commentary-analysis/the-perils-of-email-communication/"perils of email communication/a where I was involved in a situation where my brief email replies were misconstrued as rude by the recipient. I wonder, now, if I had included a bunch of exclamation points, or, heaven forbid, smiley face emoticons, at the end of my sentences if they would have softened my message. I#8217;ll never know./p
pI run a blog where I publish stories about weddings in Maine. Photographers submit photos of a particular wedding, and the bride fills out a questionnaire about their big day for their blog post. These questionnaires are consistently dripping in exclamation points./p
pI get it. Your wedding day is exciting! You?re marrying the man of your dreams! It really is a dream come true! But I omit most of these exclamation points in the blog posts because, well, all the excitement is kind of hard to swallow.span id="more-29093"/span/p
pWhile the wedding questionnaire and emails are, admittedly, usually written in a more conversational tone, it?s sort of funny if you take a moment and read them out loud. If more people did this, I bet there would be much less exclamation point use because these people would realize how silly they sound./p
pPunctuation marks prevent confusion and they help us, as readers, create rhythm. I decided to look up the basic guidelines of our punctuation in my trusty a href="http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-news/commentary-analysis/10-secrets-to-writing-well/"emWhen Words Collide/em/a book to see how we should really be using our punctuation. Here goes:/p
ul
li
pA strongcomma/strong, a subtle mark, creates a short pause between sentence elements./p
pI can?t tell you how many times commas trip writers up. My rule of thumb? Read what you are writing out loud and insert a comma when you subconsciously pause while reading the sentence./p
pAnother note on the comma?depending on what the style is for the publication you are writing for, a serial comma may or may not be used. I prefer the example: red, white, and blue over red, white and blue. Adding the last comma before the and in the last item creates a clearer distinction, in my humble opinion./p
/li
liA strongsemicolon/strong slows the reader; it isn?t powerful enough to completely stop./li
li
pA strongdash/strong?maligned by purists but used frequently in journalism?creates a more abrupt break than the comma./p
pI actually use the dash in lieu of the semicolon. Perhaps it?s because I am a journalist, but I think the dash is cleaner looking than the semicolon and less pretentious./p
/li
liA strongcolon/strong announces the following: a list, a fragment, a sentence, or a quotation./li
li
pA stronghyphen/strong is well-used in our language. It joins modifiers that belong together./p
pHyphens always trip me up. That?s why we have an English professor/grammarian guru on staff at the magazine to insert them into our copy when needed./p
/li
liAn strongellipsis/strong warns us?something is missing. Sometimes people use an ellipsis like a dash?but I always prefer the latter./li
li
pstrongParentheses/strong (they look like this) are used to clarify a point or add an aside without (we hope) hampering the sentence rhythm./p
pIf you are quoting someone, you can not (in good faith) use a parentheses, in my opinion. They also serve as an inner monologue that can?t be proven in a quote./p
/li
/ul
pDo you have any punctuation pet peeves you#8217;d care to share? I#8217;d love to listen#8230;/p
pemPhoto credit: a title="Attribution License" href="http://photodune.net/wiki/support/legal-terms/licensing-terms/"Some rights reserved/a by a href="http://photodune.net/item/exclamation/1718725"xilius/a/em./p
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