Punctuation in Academic Writing: Common Errors | Examples

Punctuation signals the structure of a text, telling us not only where one idea ends and another begins, but also which idea is more important and how it relates to other ideas. The wrong punctuation, then, signals the wrong relationship between ideas, confusing your reader.

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These pages outline some of the most important punctuation rules and common mistakes. Punctuation misuse often causes or is caused by other kinds of mistakes, usually on the level of sentence structure.

 

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Shane Bryson

Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.