Commas, semicolons, and colons…oh my!

You’re not really sure which one to use, but you know your sentence needs something to help it make sense. As any writer knows, the punctuation you use can mean the difference between a clearly written sentence and a clunky sentence that makes little to no sense. Below are a few common punctuation problems I’ve seen in stories, student papers, articles, technical documents, office memos, etc. While a good editor will weed out these errors, if you’re making these mistakes consistently you’ll want to revisit the basic rules of punctuation usage. Sites such as Grammar Girl, Lousy Writer, and Purdue OWL Writing Lab provide helpful guidance.