Punctuation - the colon

The function of the colon is:

• To signal the special relationship between the parts before, and the parts after it. (Every man and woman has three aims: to live, to love, to learn.)
• To introduce a list. (I have mailed to you the following items: copy of cash book to year end, cheque butts, and deposit slips.)
• For the introuction of a formal or long quotation with such words as reads or read and writes or write. (Graeme Kinross-Smith, in his "Writer: A Working Guide for New Writers, writes of Virginia Wolf: "[She] expressed, more cogently than Richardson or Joyce perhaps, the ideas that led to the new way of looking at the world in fiction.") Note that a colon is also used before the subtitle of a book, as above.
• The colon is also used to: separate information, as in chapter and verse (John 3:16); act and scene (King Lear, Act Three: Scene Two); hour and minute (8:20 a.m.); volume and page reference (World Book, 8:320).

There are more but too many to list here. Every writer should have a good book on punctuation on their bookshelf so make this a priority for your reference library.

Punctuation – the Apostrophe

The apostrophe is one of the most misused punctuation marks in the English language, and its misuse is growing. The apostrophe is used for the following reasons:

• in place of a missing letter in contracted words, such as don't instead of do not, it's instead of it is, they're instead of they are, or an omission, such as the year of '66.
• to indicate possession, as in Tom's ball, Descartes's theorem, the judges' rulings. (Note that adding the apostrophe and an extra 's' to a word that already ends in 's' produces a different sound to that when only the apostrophe is added.)
• to indicate possession to the last word in a phrase or a compound – my mother-in-law's couch; the Member for Canberra's vote
• to indicate possession for joint ownership, the apostrophe is added to the last name on the list, for example, John and Mary's anniversary. If the thing is not owned jointly, use an apostrophe for each name, as in John's and Mary's birthday
• the apostrophe is also needed when you want to indicate a duration in time, for instance, in one minute's time…… or after ten years' experience…….
• you will also add an apostrophe to the word before a gerund, for example, In the event of David's resigning…… Note the two separate meanings in the following sentences, just by adding or not adding an apostrophe: I object to the visitor's speaking Italian. I object to the visitors speaking Italian.
• Use the apostrophe with certain plurals, such as do's and don'ts and M.D.'s

Don't use the apostrophe for phrases like one's and two's – this should be ones and twos, or for the '60's – should be the 60s, or the sixties.

Punctuation - Quote Marks and Commas

When you have finished your first-level edit, you need to go back over your work and check all punctuation marks. Punctuation marks go inside quotation marks, not outside. If you've made this mistake often, use the search and replace option to fix these. Check to see that you have used the same type of quotation marks throughout the work, that is, one quote mark or a double quote mark.

Check to make sure that you haven't used too many commas or other 'stop' signs for your reader, or too few. Sometimes, the wrong placement of a comma can lead to confusion. I recently read an article about food and diet and came across this sentence: "Don't eat any foods, that contain fats or sugars." It's a poorly written sentence anyway, but the comma makes it seem as if the writer is advising the reader not to eat any foods! The sentence would have been better written thus: "Don't eat foods containing fats or sugars.

An unnecessary comma is more of a distraction than none, so only use commas where they will promote easier reading.

Editing Process

After completing an edit of a passage, check it again to see that your work is seamless. When we change one thing around, others parts are affected. Make sure that each sentence blends in with its neighbours, and that no scars or amputations are obvious. Your reader should not be able to detect where you have cut, added, or moved words and sentences around.

W. Somerset Maugham said that "A good style should show no sign of effort. What is written should seem like a happy accident."