10-4-09

I have always punctuated as I write. I find that it helps organize my thoughts when I properly punctuate my sentences and seems to point my writing through logical trains of thought instead of rambling and losing the focus of my writing. This is definitely a more natural way to learn how to write and punctuate, in the phonetic sense. It fits that I don’t speak in a long droning matter and then try to somehow go back and correct those errors. They just naturally fall into sub-units of language as I go: at the sentence level, below to individual clauses and above to paragraphs and others. So for writing, while I might make mistakes in forming these sub-units at first just like speaking, it guides the writer as well as the reader and, in fact, is intrinsic to meaning.
I think it is the same for most students to learn to factor in punctuation as a valuable part of their communication beyond simple and pointless rules. It seems that after the initial difficulty of adding another operation to an already occupied mind, punctuating during writing lends itself to an eventual benefit in ease and quality of writing through a natural sense of punctuation and the ability to correct later. I see it in the same light as speaking in complete (at least most of the time) sentences. It isn’t something that only directs the reader and forms complete thoughts. It affects the whole of the work how it is worked. Mostly, it isn’t something a student could just go back and fix. It needs to be placed on the page in the manner that it is thought and envisioned, even when that sort of deliberate writing is difficult.

Question!: Is it ok to use an exclamation point without it being used as a sentence ending punctuation? I’ve seen it used in literary pieces almost as a comma that expresses, well, exclamation, but the following writing doesn’t start with a capitalized word, a new sentence or anything. Does an exclamation point not necessarily end a sentence! and is more a dramatic piece than anything?