Punctuation at Work: Simple Principles for Achieving Clarity and Good Style - Softcover

Lauchman, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081441494X ISBN 13: 9780814414941

Publisher: Amacom, 2010

Synopsis

In the workplace, good punctuation is much more than a matter of correctness. It’s a matter of efficiency. Professionals who aren’t sure how to punctuate take more time than necessary to write, as they fret about the many inconsistent and contradictory rules they’ve picked up over the years. Good punctuation is also 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. Weak punctuation results in time-wasting confusion, questions about professionalism, and some times even serious and costly miscommunication.

Without using the jargon of grammar — and providing 18 common sense principles to live by — Punctuation at Work shows busy professionals exactly how the marks can be used to make meaning clear and emphasize ideas. All the marks are covered, with hundreds of examples taken from today’s workplace. From hyphens and semicolons to brackets and quotation marks...all the way to ellipses (and the eternal struggle between “that” and “which”), this book explains the many ways punctuation makes things plain.

About this title

Review:

"The book made me laugh out loud a number of times - something I thought impossible for a book about punctuation. Launchman employs powerful examples that make proper punctuation easy to understand and to put into practice." -- About.com Online Business/ Hosting

From the Back Cover:

You’ll never be perplexed by punctuation again! With 19 easy rules of thumb and hundreds of illuminating examples, Punctuation at Work shows you how to wield commas, semicolons, dashes, quotation marks, apostrophes, and more with the precision you need to get your message across—clearly, accurately, and instantly.

 

Advance Praise for Punctuation At Work

“No longer is ‘painless punctuation’ a contradiction in terms. Richard Lauchman makes it not only painless, but actually fun, to think of commas, colons, semicolons, and apostrophes not as mysterious volatile substances that are likely to explode in your face, but rather as useable and helpful navigational tools, a global positioning system for the bewildering thicket we call English syntax.” — Michael E. Geisler, Ph.D., Vice President for Language Schools, Schools Abroad, and Graduate Programs and C.V. Starr Professor in Linguistics and Languages, MiddleburyCollege

 

“Who would ever have thought that a book on punctuation would make one laugh out loud!?! Dr. Lauchman has produced an important (and entertaining) guide for those who wish to write clearly. Well done!” — Paul M. Hottle, Vice President of Human Resources and Dean of Retail Leadership Programs, Chevy Chase Bank

 

“Here at last is a book that explains punctuation in the way it should have been ex­plained all along. It clarifies many matters of style I now realize I had never truly understood. Reading it is like listening to a patient blacksmith explain his craft—simply, thoroughly, and most of all, practically. I recommend Punctuation at Work to all who care about the clarity and precision of their writing.” — Peter Zou, Vice President of Planning, Forecasting & Analysis, Freddie Mac

 

Through his company The Lauchman Group, Richard Lauchman has trained professionals in the area of business writing for over 25 years. He is the author of Plain Style and Write for Results, as well as The Plain Language Handbook, a resource widely used by both government agencies and corporations. He lives in Rockville, Maryland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Amacom
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 081441494X
• ISBN 13: 9780814414941
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208