{"id":1186,"date":"2015-03-05T22:01:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T22:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/technicalwriting1xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&p=1186"},"modified":"2023-03-28T22:32:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T22:32:05","slug":"unit-1-language-usage-word-usage-sentence-structure_readings-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-technicalwriting\/chapter\/unit-1-language-usage-word-usage-sentence-structure_readings-2\/","title":{"raw":"Punctuation, Mechanics, Capitalization, and Spelling Introduction","rendered":"Punctuation, Mechanics, Capitalization, and Spelling Introduction"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\nHabits in writing as in life are only useful if they are\r\nbroken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.\r\n\u2014W. Somerset Maugham<\/strong><\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nThis chapter is about habit. As Samuel Beckett once noted, \u201cHabit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.\u201d It is amazing how consistently we repeat the exact same little errors out of mere habit. However, we can tackle these habits by identifying them as patterns and writing with an eye for them. As a graduate student, I once misspelled the word \u201cseparate\u201d (using an \u201ce\u201d in the middle) 16 times on an exam. My professor circled the offending letter each time and glibly noted, \u201cI wish you could spell better.\u201d His chiding cured me, and (knock wood) I have not misspelled \u201cseparate\u201d since. Many students find that they have picked up the habit of putting commas in automatically before prepositions or even after conjunctions rather than before. Once such habits are identified, however, they can be addressed effectively.\r\n\r\nNo matter how niggling they may seem, details about punctuation, mechanics, capitalization, and spelling are important to master. Even with the spell checker and grammar checker eternally activated, we can make plenty of tiny mistakes that deeply affect sentence meaning. I know of an engineer who has repeatedly reported inaccurate dollar amounts to clients because of his sloppy proofreading. I have read government reports by well-published scientists where the colon was misused more than a dozen times in a single report. Even capitalization rules can be highly important to meaning: a student in geology, for example, must be aware of whether or not to capitalize \u201cice age\u201d (yes when you mean the specific glacial epoch; no when you mean any of a series of cold periods alternating with periods of relative warmth). Finally, small mechanical errors (such as abbreviating a term or acronym improperly) reflect a general sloppiness and disregard for convention.\r\n\r\nSo work on the little things. Seek to understand punctuation marks as units affecting grammar and meaning, and accept proper spelling, capitalization, and mechanics as professional necessities. This chapter will help you to do so without immersing you into a grammatical swamp.\r\n

Self-Study<\/h3>\r\nFor further lessons on punctuation, visit these pages:\r\n
\"A Brief History of Punctuation\" article from about.com<\/a>\r\n\r\n\"Brief Overview of Punctuation\" article\u00a0from Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL)<\/a><\/blockquote>","rendered":"
\n

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are
\nbroken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
\n\u2014W. Somerset Maugham<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This chapter is about habit. As Samuel Beckett once noted, \u201cHabit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.\u201d It is amazing how consistently we repeat the exact same little errors out of mere habit. However, we can tackle these habits by identifying them as patterns and writing with an eye for them. As a graduate student, I once misspelled the word \u201cseparate\u201d (using an \u201ce\u201d in the middle) 16 times on an exam. My professor circled the offending letter each time and glibly noted, \u201cI wish you could spell better.\u201d His chiding cured me, and (knock wood) I have not misspelled \u201cseparate\u201d since. Many students find that they have picked up the habit of putting commas in automatically before prepositions or even after conjunctions rather than before. Once such habits are identified, however, they can be addressed effectively.<\/p>\n

No matter how niggling they may seem, details about punctuation, mechanics, capitalization, and spelling are important to master. Even with the spell checker and grammar checker eternally activated, we can make plenty of tiny mistakes that deeply affect sentence meaning. I know of an engineer who has repeatedly reported inaccurate dollar amounts to clients because of his sloppy proofreading. I have read government reports by well-published scientists where the colon was misused more than a dozen times in a single report. Even capitalization rules can be highly important to meaning: a student in geology, for example, must be aware of whether or not to capitalize \u201cice age\u201d (yes when you mean the specific glacial epoch; no when you mean any of a series of cold periods alternating with periods of relative warmth). Finally, small mechanical errors (such as abbreviating a term or acronym improperly) reflect a general sloppiness and disregard for convention.<\/p>\n

So work on the little things. Seek to understand punctuation marks as units affecting grammar and meaning, and accept proper spelling, capitalization, and mechanics as professional necessities. This chapter will help you to do so without immersing you into a grammatical swamp.<\/p>\n

Self-Study<\/h3>\n

For further lessons on punctuation, visit these pages:<\/p>\n

“A Brief History of Punctuation” article from about.com<\/a><\/p>\n

“Brief Overview of Punctuation” article\u00a0from Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div>