Write Right - Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

PunctuationPunctuation is the use of commas, semicolons, apostrophes, questionmarks and so on, for grammatical or other purposes. Withoutpunctuation, most written or printed text would make little sense:a year ago polly perkss brother marched off to battle nowpollys willing to resort to drastic measures to find him so she cutsoff her hair dons masculine garb and aided by a well placed pair ofsocks sets out to join this mans armyUsed correctly punctuation can make your writing flow easily, impressyour reader and deliver your message in a clear and professionalmanner.Punctuation is a powerful tool and can also change the meaning of asentence:These are my daughters. (2 or more daughters).These are my daughter’s. (Things that belong to my daughter).An English professor asked 2 groups of students, one male and onefemale, to punctuate the sentence ‘A woman without her man is nothing.’Not surprisingly the male group came up with:A woman, without her man, is nothing!However the female group had:A woman: without her, man is nothing!The same words, but with different punctuation, the whole meaning ischanged!20