Obeying the punctuation rules

Abstract

The subject of punctuation can raise considerable debate. One camp maintains that it helps the reader in the same way as musical notation helps an instrumentalist to interpret the notes as the composer intended. The other camp maintains that a fussy succession of little marks interrupts the flow of information to the brain, and that punctuation is only needed when there is a possibility of ambiguity. But there is a difference between those who mis-punctuate through ignorance and those who carefully choose when to omit unnecessary marks. When I read reports and proposals, I often sense that writers are scared to use anything more than the minimum of punctuation in case they get it wrong. And then they do get it wrong. The effect is to devalue the points being made because the text is so hard to unravel, as the following example illustrates: