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Introduction to Poetry | | |
 Background - Punctuation
Introduction - Section 2: Punctuation
In this section of the course we are going to take a second look at the poem. Now the line endings have
been added but there are still
a number of things which have been deliberately removed from the text. The next one we'll consider is
punctuation.
When language is written down rather than spoken, then we use a series of symbols to record the sounds
we make. In English the 26
letters of the alphabet are used to represent the sounds we make in speaking. Punctuation marks represents
the pauses between words
and sentences, or occasionally the tone in which a sentence is delivered. So, in speech, sentences tend
to rise at the end if we're asking
a question and the question mark in punctuation is a way of representing this in a written form.
Here are the basic punctuation marks with some equally basic information on how each one is commonly
used:
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Full Stop/Period
Used to mark the end of a sentence and therefore of a unit of
thought. The longest of pauses.
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,
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Comma
Used to mark pauses in the middle of a sentence. Can be used to
separate items in a list and to indicate a parenthesis within a sentence.
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Semi - Colon
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:
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Colon
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?
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Question Mark
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