Writing is an invention, perhaps the greatest of all time.  With writing, civilization has been enhanced.  Knowledge could not be transferred as efficiently from one generation to the next without writing.

          Students too often confuse writing with speech.  Speech is oral and uses sounds to represent particular words which have meanings.  When the ears hear the sounds of words, the brain decodes their meanings.  These activities are learned early and unconsciously.  Speech is universal; writing is not.  Writing is learned and is graphic.  It relies upon the eye.  The eyes see the words and the brain decodes their meanings.

          Because writing is an invention of human beings, it has changed over centuries of usage:

readersshouldimaginetryingtoreadwritingthathasnospacesbetweenwordsandwhichhadno punctuationwhichwasoneparagraphlongithadnothingonthepageexceptwordswhichhadto
befiguredoutwhichsomeitmesranfromlefttorightandthenrighttoleftwithoutanycluestohelp
decipher meaning in time writers began to separate words which made reading easier
but it took years and years of development before such things are paragraphs and periods became standard in writing
          paragraphs eventually became common as did periods and the other forms of punctuation, including starting the first word of a sentence with a capital letter.  The printing press has been an important factor in the development of punctuation as clues to intonation and meaning.

          Punctuation is the latest of the writing inventions and is not arbitrary.  Although it is a rough indication of the stress and pitch of speech, punctuation contributes to meaning.  It is not a simple indicator for the reader to inhale a breath of air.  Most people read silently and rather quickly, moving their eyes after reading groups of words.  In the beginning of his novel Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain has Huck say:

 "That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain and he told the truth mainly there was things which he stretched but mainly he told the truth." 

Without punctuation, these sentences are extremely hard to interpret, and without punctuation all and any humor is lost.  Twain actually wrote:

"That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.  There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth."

Separating the repetition of the word mainly into two sentences emphasizes its meaning in terms of truthsaying.  Putting the first mainly after a comma at the end of the sentence produces and introduces the kind of humor the reader can expect though out the rest of the novel.

          Speech, of course, does not make use of the graphic symbols used in writing.  As a result, the majority of the mistakes writers make deal with spelling, sentence completion, and punctuation.  Students who have problems in these areas need not despair because they can learn it all, with a little effort.  If millions of others have learned it, so can they, if they put in the effort.  Modern times are also on their side since the current trend is away from punctuation.  Writers today use much less punctuation than did writers of about one hundred years ago.

          A good rule about punctuation is WHEN IN DOUBT, LEAVE IT OUT.  This rule does not free writers from learning punctuation and the other graphic features of writing, that is  if they want to be taken seriously as writers.

          Windows based word processing programs contain spell checkers and grammar checkers.  They are excellent tools which should never be ignored if writers are not sure of how to punctuate their writings.  English handbooks are a necessary supplement to the computer tools.  Writers should always have a dictionary and an English handbook within three feet of their bodies.

          In addition to a good English handbook, the following links are good introductions to punctuation:

11 Rules of Writing

Introduction to Punctuation

OWL Handouts

Punctuation

Punctuation and Mechanics

Punctuation Made Simple

SchoolHouse Rock

Sentence Structure and Punctuation