Petey's
Pipeline E-zine
Issue #41
December 4, 2006
Contents
Business
First December
Update: I'm Baaa-aack!
Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings
National Security—Safe
or Sorry
Write Thinking Punctuation
– the Marks of Professionals (the Comma, Part III of
IV)
Business
First (Editorial)
December
Update: I'm Baaa-aack!
NaNoWriMo
is over for another year, and now it's time to get back to work.
No, I didn't finish a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, but I did
develop a pretty good strategy for finishing a full-length novel
in a couple of years. We'll see.
In
the meantime, I'm getting a head start on the next Petey's Pipeline
issue, due out on December 18th. See you then!
• • •
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Random
Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings
National
Security—Safe or Sorry
On
December 18th, issue #42 features an article on food security
to launch a multiple-part series related to national security
concerns.
Copyright
© 2006 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
Write
Thinking
Punctuation – the Marks of Professionals
Getting
punctuation right is critical to making your writing intelligible
and coherent. As with misspelled and misused words, misused
or missing punctuation takes your message off track and confuses
your readers. To help you avoid the avoidable, the next few
installments of Write Thinking deal with punctuation
marks, in all their many forms, with example sentences provided
for clarification.
The
Comma (,), Part III of IV
•
A comma precedes the conjunctions and, but, for, nor, or,
and yet when they join independent clauses in a compound
sentence.
I
took the car to the repair shop like you suggested, and
they should have it ready by noon.
She tried to deliver the message in person, but no one
was home.
•
It's okay to omit the comma between most short clauses and some
long clauses if the meaning is clear.
She
looked but didn't see the hidden message.
•
A comma fault occurs when a comma is used sans coordinate
conjunction between two independent clauses.
The
players in impromptu games don't adhere to a fixed set of rules,
they make up rules to fit the situation.
•
Punctuate in one of three ways to eliminate the comma fault:
The
players in impromptu games don't adhere to a fixed set of rules,
but they make up rules to fit the situation. (Use a coordinate
conjunction)
The players in impromptu games don't adhere to a fixed set of
rules; they make up rules to fit the situation. (Use
a semicolon)
The players in impromptu games don't adhere to a fixed set of
rules. They make up rules to fit the situation. (Use two simple
sentences)
•
If the independent clauses of a compound sentence are long or
contain internal punctuation, use a semicolon before the coordinate
conjunction.
The
players in impromptu games don't adhere to a fixed set of rules;
but they make up rules, out of necessity, to fit
the situation.
•
When words or phrases express contrast, use a comma to separate
them.
The
copilot, not the pilot, landed the plane.
•
Separate month, year or definite place with a comma.
On
March 20, 2003, President Bush launched a preemptive
war by bombing Baghdad, Iraq.
Copyright
© 2006 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
Disclaimer
The
articles appearing in Petey's Pipeline E-zine are based on information
believed to be true at the time of publication.
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