Perfect Punctuation

by Stephen Curtis

From mastering punctuation marks to improving writing in general, this invaluable guidebook covers everything from semi-colons to inverted commas. Its chapters outline step-by-step guidance on how to use each mark and how to avoid common mistakes. Useful tips to emphasize tricky points of grammar are also included, with helpful examples of correct and incorrect usage and exercises that encourage further practice. Ideal for both quick reference and in-depth browsing, Perfect Punctuation has everything the reader needs to ensure that mistakes are never made again.

Genres: Writing

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Stephen Curtis, MA (Oxon), BPhil (York) is a former university teacher of English language and literature. He is now a freelance writer, editor, lexicographer and playwright.

Reviews

[T.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful book with some helpful exercises, probably better in paperback as you would be able to check exercise answers more easily.

[Nick Turner · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you don't love punctuation this work will bore you. But if you are motivated to learn it covers the main uses of common punctuation marks. The introduction fetishises correctness (i.e. conventionality) for its own sake but if communication is the ultimate goal, conventionality, while often coincident with utility in conservative writing, is merely instrumental.

There is a table of contents with nested sections for each chapter. The key to the exercises (exercise answers) is in the fourth part towards the end.

The writing is verbose. The author takes painstaking care to explain details even if that means lengthy sentences. The writing can feel a little disjointed. Sometimes an extension or objection occurred to me but wasn't taken up for a page or two. A cross reference (a hypertext link: "see here") in the section on quotation marks is helpful; more cross references (in other sections) would unify the work better.

Taking the reader step-by-step through the basics before introducing complications is a good approach for novices, although the focus on punctuation can mean that a complication is introduced before the simplest (unpunctuated) form e.g. comma-separated lists of adjectives vs simple lists of adjectives.

There are sections for various punctuation marks. Sections give examples of correct and incorrect usage and a recap of details.

One example promotes drinking alcohol:

I took a drink from a clear, cool, refreshing mountain stream.
NOT
I took a drink from a clear, cool, refreshing, mountain stream.
Similarly, this sentence is correctly punctuated:
I took a drink of clear, cool, refreshing white wine.

There are brief sections without exercises for ellipses and slashes.
In the section on ellipses, an ellipsis separated by spaces from adjacent words looks strange to me. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer ellipses with the same spacing as other similar punctuation marks (e.g. commas, full stops).

The example of quoting titles of minor works in academic works appears to be omitted by mistake.
The numbered example for "A single bracket" appears to be misprinted without any brackets.
The index at the end of the ebook edition is slightly less worse than nothing. Cryptic page numbers are given, with the lazy note "The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created." The nadir is the absence of hypertext links.

In passing, I noticed numerous editing inadequacies.

Typo in example "Aren't you fed with hearing them ask when they will get there?" (fed up).
Typo in exercise "Freddy and Jean aunt gave it to themb."
Typo: "to turn to turn" (duplicate).
"easy way-in to this topic" awkward, unnecessary "easy way into"
Mistake in exclamation mark exercise passage: The answer uses a punctuation mark which is not specified as an option (and had not been introduced yet) in the exercise.
"Except at the beginnings or ends of the sentence," plural doesn't agree with singular object.
"Remember the rule: in the middles of sentences, commas work in pairs." prefer in the middle of the/a sentence. Hmm there is a solitary comma in the middle of the rule sentence. The rule is vague - better a rule which says why.
"He did volunteer that fact that his name was" prefer "the fact".
"The first type is called a 'restrictive' or 'defining' relative clause, because it specifies or identifies what or who a particular thing or person is... The words 'restrictive' and 'defining' are not particularly illuminating on their own," The word "qualifying" (qualifying relative clause) seems apt.
"the woman that I love most in all the world" ugly, prefer "the woman who".
The part on the colon has exercise questions but no exercise passage.
I don't think the treatment of commas with "so (that)" is consistent with the New Oxford American Dictionary entry for "so".

By using the word "distinctness" the writer draws a fine distinction between "distinctness" and "distinction". This is hair-splitting; it's multiplying entities without reason: "distinctness" is unnecessary.
Some exercises are clumsily worded, in the style of colloquial speech. For the colon or semicolon insertion exercise "The weather was truly awful for the time of the year rain followed fog followed thunder followed hail." The phrase "for the time of the year" fits the pattern for a comment on the sentence - it is awkwardly placed.

In my e-book viewer (Adobe Digital Editions) the cautionary example for a single bracket at a line ending does not have the brackets at line endings (independent of text size).
Chapter references in the text of the e-book do not provide a hypertext link to the referred chapter.
Are "en dash" and "em dash" really the names of typographical marks? Are there no more descriptive names?
The section on dashes leaves the reader in suspense about how em dashes should be used.

[Andy Hickmott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is prosaic stuff, but absolutely essential for any wannabe writer. I writer, who can't place hi's commas, and apostrophes in the right place is like a carpenter who can't tell the difference between a chisel and a screwdriver.

For more fun with punctuation, I would recommend Lynn Truss's 'Eats Shoots & Leaves'. For a concise guide to (American) punctuation, there is nothing better than Strunk & White's 'The Elements of Style'. But is you just want the information without all the wit and 'personality', this little book is worth reading.