AdviceToWriters

When speaking aloud, you punctuate constantly—with body language. Your listener hears commas, dashes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks as you shout, whisper, pause, wave your arms, roll your eyes, wrinkle your brow. In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear you the way you want to be heard. Careful use of those little marks emphasizes the sound of your distinctive voice and keeps the reader from becoming bored or confused. . . . [Punctuation] exists to serve you. Don’t be bullied into serving it.

RUSSELL BAKER

A story can be wrecked by a faulty rhythm in a sentence—especially if it occurs toward the end—or a mistake in paragraphing, even punctuation.

TRUMAN CAPOTE

The word “I’ll” should not be divided so that the “I” is on one line and “’ll” on the next. The reader’s attention, after the breaking up of “I’ll,” can never be successfully recaptured.

JAMES THURBER

Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Exclamation marks, also called “notes of admiration,” should be sparingly used. Queen Victoria used so many of them in her letters that a sentence by her that ends with a mere full-stop seems hardly worth reading.

ROBERT GRAVES and ALAN HODGE

The author of the style-book of the Oxford University Press of New York (quoted in Perrin’s Writer’s Guide) says “If you take hyphens seriously you will surely go mad.” You should not take hyphens seriously.

SIR ERNEST GOWERS

A paragraph should concern only one phase of a narrative or argument. This phase may be large or small, but must be self-contained.

ROBERT GRAVES and ALAN HODGE

Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas one long chunk of type can discourage the reader from even starting to read.

WILLIAM ZINSSER