Still struggling with the use of commas and semicolons? Some people really just never catch on, even after reading through the guidelines over and over. If you count yourself among those who continually have a hard time with these two punctuations, here’s an idea:
Stop memorizing the rules.
Yep, just quit on it. If it hasn’t stuck after five or six times of trying (and hoping to catch mistakes with a writing correction software), it might be prudent to try something else. Rather than give it one more go doing the same thing over, how about you try getting these punctuations right by getting a feel for them?
Let’s say you’ve written a paragraph and are now trying to figure out proper placement for commas and semicolons. Read it aloud in a conversational tone, noting where you would normally pause if you were narrating it to an audience. Those pauses indicate where the punctuations should appear.
- If it’s a short pause, you probably need to add a comma.
- If it’s a long pause, but not quite a full stop (as a period will require), you probably need a semicolon; just make sure that the clause following the semicolon is a statement that can stand on its own.
- If you wrote down a comma in a section where it wouldn’t make sense to pause when you’re reading it aloud, remove it; the punctuation only makes the sentence difficult to read.
