The Use of Punctuation in the Writing of Libyan Students Essay

punctuation mark in side of meatParkes (1992), in his invaluable study of the memoir of punctuation, statesPunctuation was developed by stages which coincided with changing patterns of literacy, whereby new generations of articulateers in divers(prenominal) historical situations imposed new demands on the written medium itself (p. 2).Punctuation is not a static model and even if we confine the intelligence to early modern and modern English, it has changed quite considerably across sentence (Numberg, 1999). The uses of punctuation are conventional they change over time and neuter from words to language. on that point have been to be conventions or rules, for with surface these, punctuation would be wholly idiosyncratic and the possibilities of using it to facilitate effective communication would be either lost of severely hindered (Beard & et al., 2009). Some rules of punctuation are needed if we violate them, we have made mistakes in punctuation. Others are optional our prize is basing on the effect and emphasis we desire to deliver. To that extent, Greenbaum and Nelson (2002 183) say punctuation is an art. There was a considerable debate between two schools one believed punctuation should be based on elocution (how a sentence is spoken when it is read out aloud) and the other believed punctuation should be based on the grammar (Petit 2003 Curtis, 2007 planetary house and Robinson, 1996 Parkes, 1992). The latter (the syntactic-based approach) is the one we use today, which means the debate was won by grammar school. Recently, Dawkins (2003 and 1995) has come out with a new believe teaching punctuation should be based on the meaning (the semantic- based approach). Dawkins (2003) assumes that writers have an intuitive sense of the independent claus... ..., p. 349). Moreover, Chiang (1999) claims that in EFL writing, the sentence(s) may appear to be detach order, but in incongruent places due to inappropriate use or non use of punctuation. Using the premise that students often have weak language skills, Warner (1979) surveyed 431 postsecondary students using four tools students scores on an heading test, an in-class writing sample, an editing exercise, and a questionnaire about background in English and attitude toward grammar and writing. She found that the largest number of errors in the writing occurred in punctuation. She came out with The high error rate in punctuation resulted from 1) the students not conditioned the rules of punctuation, 2) knowing the rules but not being able to apply them to their birth writing, or 3) constructing such poor sentences that correct punctuation was impossible (p.18).