Richard Lauchman

Punctuation at Work

Simple Principles for Achieving Clarity and Good Style

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Good punctuation is more than just a matter of courtesy: in workplace writing, a sentence should yield its meaning instantly. But when punctuation is haphazard, readers need to work to understand or guess at the writer's intent. Punctuation at Work provides readers with 18 common sense principles to live by, helping them to avoid time-wasting confusion, questions about professionalism and sometimes even serious and costly miscommunication. From hyphens and semicolons to brackets and quotation marks...all the way to ellipses (and the eternal struggle between 'that' and 'which'), this book shows readers how to use correct punctuation to make meaning clear and emphasize their most important ideas.

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Through his company the Lauchman Group, author Richard Lauchman has trained professionals in the area of business writing for over thirty years. Now, in this essential guide, he reveals how good punctuation is the key to clear written communication and to emphasizing ideas without the help of vocal tone or facial cues. Using eighteen common-sense grammar principles to live by, he teaches readers how to improve their business writing and provides them with the tools to make the whole process go a lot faster--doing away with time-wasting fretting over the placement of a mark and any confusion or accidental unprofessionalism in your compositions. In Punctuation at Work, you'll discover how to utilize all of the most important marks--from hyphens to semicolons to brackets to quotation marks . . . to ellipses--as well as how to overcome the eternal struggle between using "that" and "which," and much more. With hundreds of examples taken from today's workplaces, this book explains the many ways correct punctuation makes successful business writing a breeze.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: HarperCollins Leadership / McGraw-Hill Professional
• SPE
• Seitenzahl: 210
• Erscheinungstermin: 17. Februar 2010
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 13mm
• Gewicht: 308g
• ISBN-13: 9780814414941
• ISBN-10: 081441494X
• Artikelnr.: 26816573

Autorenporträt

RICHARD LAUCHMAN through his company The Lauchman Group, has been training professionals, in the area of writing, for over 25 years.

Inhaltsangabe

CONTENTS

Introduction
Author's Note
Definitions

What You Need to Know First: 19 Principles
1. Punctuation can't rescue sense from nonsense.
2. The main reason to punctuate is to clarify your intent.
3. One of punctuation's tasks is to supply the various signals given by the voice.
4. In workplace writing, a sentence should yield its meaning instantly.
5. Punctuation should be invisible.
6. Punctuation follows the arrangement of words.
7. Punctuation indicates how ideas relate.
8. Punctuation suggests how much emphasis an idea deserves.
9. Punctuation slows the reading.
10. Don't count too much on context to make your meaning plain.
11. Know the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive expressions.
12. Respect the distinction between that and which.
13. When is punctuation optional?
14. Use the serial comma.
15. When do I separate adjectives with a comma?
16. Use the hyphen to clarify "improvised usage."
17. Sometimes, no matter how you punctuate, a reader is going to think it's wrong.
18. Feed your head.
19. When you see an odd usage, consider the source.

The Marks
- Apostrophe
- Brackets
- Colon
- Comma
- Dash
- Ellipsis
- Hyphen
- Parentheses
- Period
- Question Mark
- Quotation Marks
- Semicolon
- Slash
- Punctuating Common Sentence Structures

Appendix: How to List Ideas
Notes
Index