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Writing
Skills
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Tim North
Scribe Consulting
www.BetterWritingSkills.com
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First edition.
This free sample was last modified on 27 Jul, 2003.
This work is copyright. No part may be reproduced by any process, nor may any
other exclusive right be exercised, without the written permission of its author:
Tim North
Scribe Consulting
1, 66 Park St
Como Perth WA
Australia 6152
www.scribe.com.au
www.BetterWritingSkills.com
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Author’s Introduction
The extract that follows is taken from Chapter 7 of Better Writing Skills.
It should give you a “feel” for the book and, I hope, will be useful in its
own right.
The full version of Better Writing Skills provides over 220 pages of
clearly presented information to help you with business, thesis, technical
and creative writing.
Further information can be found on the Better Writing Skills web site:
www.BetterWritingSkills.com
Regards,
Tim North
info@BetterWritingSkills.com
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7.6 Semicolons
The above examples are correctly punctuated, but perhaps not punctuated
in the best way as the very short sentences may seem a little abrupt. You
might prefer to punctuate using a semicolon (;).
The semicolon allows us to link together two (or more) short sentences to
form a single, longer sentence.
This is good; let’s go again.
I’m Carol; this is Bob; this is George.
Region three succeeded; region four did not.
Notice that in each sentence there is only one capital letter and one full
stop. When punctuated like this, short sentences tend to run together
more smoothly than they would if written as separate sentences.
Tip #65
We can join short sentences together with a semicolon.
It is important to note that the two pieces of text joined in this manner
each form a complete sentence in their own right. For example:
Alice and Bob are being promoted; they each become VPs.
This is fine because the two parts of this sentence could each be sentences
by themselves. It would be wrong, however, to write:
Alice and Bob are being promoted; to VPs next week.
Wrong
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The two parts of this sentence do not each form a sentence in their own
right. The first part does, but the second does not.
Tip #66
As we saw in the previous section, one way to join them together would be
to use a semicolon:
Today is fine; tomorrow may be wet.
1 For those who are keen on such trivia, these words and phrases are technically
known as conjunctive adverbs. Drop this phrase into a sentence at your next
cocktail party and watch people’s eyes glaze over. ☺
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The table presented in section 7.7.2 summarises the use of semicolons for
joining sentences.
Tip #67
i.e. is Latin for id est and means that is. Here are some sample sentences:
e.g. is Latin for exempli gratia and means for example. Here are some
sample sentences:
Some users of American English put a comma after i.e. and e.g.:
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Tip #68
There is a quite reasonable school of thought that argues that the terms
i.e. and e.g., being Latin, are jargonistic and should thus be avoided. If
you agree, you might prefer to avoid using them.
Exercises2
2 The complete edition of Better Writing Skills contains the answers to all the
exercises.
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7.7 Commas
We also know that we can join short sentences using a semicolon followed
by a joining word such as however:
A third way to join short sentences is using a comma and one of these
seven small joining words: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet. 3
You can see that we can use a comma and a small joining word where we
might otherwise use a semicolon. Here are some more examples:
3 For those whose care about such things, these seven joining words are called
coordinating conjunctions. Big deal.
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When the two sentences being joined together with a comma and a
joining word are both short, the comma is sometimes omitted. For
example:
Tip #69
In the following table, words stands for any group of words that could
stand alone as a sentence.
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Tip #70
Here are some examples of nonessential words or phrases that have been
surrounded by commas. Note that in each case the nonessential phrase
could be removed from the sentence while still leaving a grammatically
correct sentence.
4 The reasons for this are unpleasantly technical. For those who really want to know
though: adverbial clauses that occur at the end of a sentence are usually considered
restrictive and are thus not preceded by a comma. Don’t you feel better for
knowing that? ☺
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Note that the nonessential words and phrases above could also be
surrounded by parentheses (commonly called brackets) or em dashes.
Parentheses are covered in section 7.11 and em dashes in section 7.15.
Tip #71
Tip #72
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There’s a simple rule of thumb to answer this question. Try to move the
introductory element to the end of the sentence. If it still makes sense,
you need a comma. Consider this example:
If we move the introductory element to the end, the sentence still makes
sense:
This tells us that the comma after business in the original sentence was
correctly used. Consider our earlier example, though:
Clearly this sentence does not make sense if we try to move the
introductory element to the end. This tells us that we do not need a
comma after the word hours in the original sentence.
Tip #73
The comma after unsure can be omitted if you wish. Try to be consistent
with your usage in such situations.
Tip #74
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On first reading you may think that the speaker was walking a flying kite.
It is not until one finishes the sentence that it becomes clear what the
actual meaning was. A comma avoids this momentary confusion; e.g.
Tip #75
Users of British English should take note that in some cases they must use
a comma between the last two elements of a list in order to remove a
potential ambiguity. For example:
As written, you might think that there is a department called Sport and
another department called Recreation and the Arts. An extra comma
removes this ambiguity:
5 Despite being a predominantly American usage, this extra comma is often called
the Oxford comma.
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Since most users of American English would include this comma anyway,
they needn’t concern themselves with this special case.
Tip #76
Technical terms
When two or more adjectives are listed one after the other, they are
generally separated by commas. For example:
Tip #77
Notice that in all the examples above, the order of the adjectives is
unimportant. For example, a “blue, leather-bound report” is little
different from a “leather-bound, blue report”. When you can swap the
order of adjectives without substantially changing the meaning, this is a
sign that a comma should separate them.
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Tip #78
Tip #79
You’ll notice that these sentences still make sense if the name or title is
removed; e.g.
Do you have that pamphlet we discussed?
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Being able to remove the name in this way confirms that the name or title
should be separated from the rest of the sentence with a comma.
Tip #80
When speaking directly to a person, his or her name (or title) is set off
from the rest of the sentence with a comma or commas.
Exercises
Commas sure are a lot of work aren’t they? There’s almost as much to
remember about commas as with all the other punctuation marks
combined. It would be a good idea to read through all of section 7.7 a
second or third time before doing these exercises.
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I hope that you’ve enjoyed this brief extract from Better Writing Skills.
Being an extract from a single chapter this sample is, of course, quite
narrowly focussed on a single topic: punctuation. The complete work,
however, covers a much wider range of topics.
http://www.BetterWritingSkills.com
Regards,
Tim North
MODULE 1: PRESENTATION
1. Choosing the right font................................................................................................. 3
1.1 Is the right font important? .....................................................................3
1.2 Which fonts are most legible? .................................................................5
2. Spacing ......................................................................................................................... 13
2.1 Why is empty space important? ............................................................ 13
2.2 Is character spacing important?............................................................14
2.3 What's the best line spacing?.................................................................16
2.4 What's the best paragraph spacing?......................................................18
2.5 How big should my margins be? ........................................................... 21
3. All about headings ......................................................................................................23
3.1 Why are headings important? .............................................................. 23
3.2 What are heading hierarchies?..............................................................25
3.3 How should I format headings? ............................................................27
4. Captions ....................................................................................................................... 31
5. Neatly formatting tables ............................................................................................33
6. Multiline lists............................................................................................................... 37
6.1 How should I format a list? ...................................................................37
6.2 How should I punctuate a list?............................................................. 39
6.3 What is parallel structure?.....................................................................41
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