Punctuation, Part 1

Below I will discuss what I learned about punctuation from Rules for Writers.

Hermes from mars. "Français" Dec 16 2012.

Unnecessary Commas

The most useful advice I got from this section was to not use a comma between compound elements that aren't independent clauses. I've always struggled with deciding where a pause was needed and more often than not I place a comma in an incorrect place. This section helped me realize that these added commas can cause confusion. I learned that using a conjunction such as "but" or "and" is plenty and doesn't require a comma at all.

The Semicolon

I had a general understanding of how to use a semicolon but this lesson showed me new uses. I was already aware of how to use it between two independent clauses. One lesson that was more beneficial to me was to use a semicolon between items in a series containing internal punctuation. This is a really helpful tool to avoid overuse of commas and clearly separate different ideas.

The Apostrophe

The rule I was most unaware of in this section was to not use apostrophes to form the plural of numbers and letters. This makes sense after reading the rules about it but isn't as obvious when trying to formulate sentences that include them. The book also mentioned an exception when using lowercase letters and the capital letters A and I.

Reflection

While peer reviewing, I found that the sections about semicolons and unnecessary commas were the most common to fix.

I peer reviewed Savannah's draft. I was able to discuss semicolons and unnecessary commas here.
One of her sentences was, "She explains Winston’s view that there is not enough evidence, yet, to understand the consequences involved with the alteration of genes." I explained that the commas between "yet" were unnecessary and could create confusion in the readers.

I discussed semicolons in this sentence: "By including outside information about the genomic sequences, Parry is able to effectively exploit the dangers involved in genetic engineering due to the high probability of failure; genetic engineering may not account for every single genomic sequence, which could potentially cause more problems. Parry then compares an embryo to other types of genetic engineering, like the modification of seeds." I commented that the semicolon could be replaced with a period in this case because there is too much internal punctuation and the clauses involved are too lengthy.

I also peer reviewed Kyle's draft. I found parts of his draft to talk about apostrophes and unnecessary commas. The sentence where I talked about apostrophes was "His examples are,  "In 2003, for example, Elan Pharmaceuticals had to stop trials of an Alzheimer's vaccine that had cured the disease in ‘Alzheimer's mice,’ after the substance caused brain inflammation in human test subjects." I mentioned how changing the quotations to apostrophes around "Alzheimer's mice" was a wise choice in taking away confusion within the quote and avoiding too many quotation marks. 

In another sentence of his, he says, "The use of recent examples add to the credibility of his argument, whereas he uses examples of the counterargument that are more than half a century old." I commented on how the comma before "whereas" is unnecessary because a pause isn't needed there and the sentence flows well without it.