Most people
take punctuation for granted. They assume that while they’re typing on the
keyboard, the commas, hyphens, apostrophes and quotation marks will just flow
from their fingers and drop right where they need to be.
Not always
the case. Even a seasoned writer such as me has to make an occasional visit to the
web to Google “em
dash versus en dash” or to brush up on AP Stylebook versus Chicago Manual of Style.
But it makes a difference. And if you don’t know the difference when you’re
looking at your own marketing materials, then you should probably leave it to
someone who does. Because nothing is going to shoot down your credibility or make
your message misunderstood like a bunch of misplaced commas, run-on sentences
or string of ellipses that leave you wondering, “AND???”
Consider how
a simple comma can save a life:
Let’s eat
Grandpa!
vs.
Let’s
eat, Grandpa!
See how
punctuation changes the meaning of a simple sentence, depending on the gender
of the editor:
A professor wrote the following sentence on the board and
asked his class to punctuate it:
Woman without her man is nothing.
The men in the class punctuated the sentence in the
following way:
Woman: without her, man is nothing.
The women responded:
Woman, without her man, is nothing.
And readers probably skipped this recipe from Rachel Ray:
While these examples are humorous, having incorrect or non-existent punctuation puts your marketing materials at risk of being misunderstood or, worse yet, not being taken seriously. Xapsis has a team of copywriters and editors who will ensure that your website and other materials are punctuation perfect in order to get what you’re really trying to say across to your customers.
