Punctuation, Part 2

For this blog post I will identify four more topics from the "Punctuation" section in Rules for Writers.  I will read to find out which information I thought was and helpful for when I complete my third project.  I will also provide example sentences from my drafts showing which topics I will talk about.

Prota, Gennaro. "Colon (punctuation)". 8 March 2006 via Wikimedia Commons Public Domain 

Topic 1:
The first topic I have chosen to read about in this section is "Unnecessary commas".  Sometimes in my writing I feel that use too many commas.  However, in my third project I do not believe that I overused commas, but placed them in their necessary positions.  I learned interesting points in this section, some of which include not including commas between compound elements that are not independent clauses.  An example of where I incorrectly write a sentence in my draft where I include this topic is, "Ultimately, individuals are injected with vaccines that usually have some form of the disease, and their immune system recognizes the foreign molecules by having antibodies attach with antigens."  What I should have done is keep the sentence and just remove the comma before "and their immune systems recognizes..."  It is not often that I make these types of mistakes, but when I do, they do not drastically change the outlook of the entire project.  It just looks better to use correct grammatical rules.

Topic 2:
The next topic that I chose to read about was "The colon".  Since I did not use colons in my project except for my works cited page and when I cited images, I did not read about too much "new" information.  I already had an idea of where I needed to use a colon.  Places include: a list, an appositive, a quotation, and in bibliographical entries.  One example of where I used a colon is in my works cited, "'Anti-Vaccine Parents Cluster in Rich, White Areas: MedlinePlus.' U.S. National Library of Medicine.  U.S. National Library of Medicine, 3 June 2015. Web. 07 Aug. 2015."  I am merely using a colon in this instance according to a convention.  The convention happens to a bibliographical entry.  Since I did not misuse any colons, I did not have any issues with reading any common misuses of them from the section in the book.

Topic 3:
The third topic that I chose to read about was "The apostrophe".  I used quite a few apostrophes in my project and while doing so, I used them all correctly.  Although not being new information, knowing to use an apostrophe to indicate that an indefinite pronoun is possessive is one of the topics that I used in my own project.  The example includes, "When vaccines are administered into one's body, their immune systems are the main contributors to keeping them healthy."  Since the word "one" does not end in an -s, I had to add an -'s to it to indicate that the indefinite pronoun is possessive.  Another topics that I learned in this section that I believe is helpful to know is avoiding common misuses of an apostrophe.  Such errors include: using an apostrophe with nouns that are not possessive and using an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns such as his, hers, and theirs.

Topic 4:
The last topic that I read about was "Quotation marks".  Since I did not have any errors regarding quotation marks in my project, I want to take note of which sections within this section I believe are helpful to remember.  When working with quotation marks, one must use them to enclose direct quotations.  Also, one must use single quotation marks to enclose a quotation withing a quotation.  Another important use of quotation marks includes using punctuation with quotation marks according to convention.  An example of where I use the last rule for quotation marks that I described includes, "An article from the Advisory Board Company describes, "Mississippi had the highest vaccination rates for all three conditions, with 99.9% of children receiving the MMR, DTaP, and varicella vaccines."  The last advice that I read about in this section that I believe can help many writers is avoiding common misuses of quotation marks.  One misuse that I find important for writers to read about is not using quotation marks to draw attention to familiar slang (ie. "ballpark figure").