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use too few it becomes difficult to follow. The following passage has no punctuation
marks at all. As you can see, it is very difficult to see what the writer means.
I am afraid that owing to the fact that the Managing Director is out of the
office at the moment it is not possible to agree to your request immediately not
that it is likely to be turned down of course but we do need his approval for
agreements of this nature however he will be back next week and I will make sure
that he deals with it as soon as possible.
Here is the same passage, but over-punctuated.
I am afraid that, owing to the fact, that the Managing Director is out of the
office, at the moment, it is not possible to agree to your request, immediately.
Not that it is likely to be turned down, of course; but we do need his approval
for agreements of this nature. However, he will be back next week; and I will
make sure that he deals with it, as soon as possible.
As you can see, it is very disjointed to read almost jerky, in fact. Now let us see how it
looks when properly punctuated.
I am afraid that, owing to the fact that the Managing Director is out of the
office at the moment, it is not possible to agree to your request immediately
not that it is likely to be turned down of course, but we do need his approval
for agreements of this nature. However, he will be back next week and I will make
sure that he deals with it as soon as possible.
This version is easier to read, and the sense is quite clear the first time you read it.
126
Punctuation
Punctuation is to a certain extent a matter of style, but there are certain rules that must
be followed if your documents are to make sense to your readers. In this chapter we will
be looking at both the rules and the points of style governing punctuation marks.
The Purposes of Punctuation
Punctuation serves four main purposes.
It divides passages up. Punctuation separates what you are writing into easily absorbed parts:
sentences, clauses and phrases. Look at the following sentence: I am enclosing our latest cat-
alogue, in which you will find all our current models. The comma breaks the sentence into
two parts, which are easier to read than one long one.
It indicates a relationship. It can signal the relationship between one part of a sentence and
another, as in the following: The catalogue (which has just been published) contains details of
our current models. The brackets indicate that the clause they enclose is an aside, not part of
the main theme of the sentence.
It differentiates between two meanings. An example of this is in the following two sentences:
Sales are up by 15% more than we budgeted for.
Sales are up by 15%, more than we budgeted for.
Although exactly the same words are used, the two sentences have different meanings; the
difference is in the comma.
It creates emphasis. You can emphasise certain words or phrases, as in There is only one
possible outcome in this situation bankruptcy. Using the dash in this way emphasises the
word bankruptcy .
Full Stops
The rules for using full stops are quite simple and widely understood. There are just two
occasions when they are used.
to end a sentence, as in Mr Graham has passed your letter to me.
after initials or abbreviations, as in P.J. Darwin , Inc. , Co. But note that a full stop is
not necessary after a contraction an abbreviation in which the first and last letters are
the same as in the full word, like Dr , Mr , Ltd or between the letters in
abbreviations such as BBC or USA . Then it is a matter of your own personal choice.
Commas
The rules governing commas are not as straightforward, or as definite, as those for other
punctuation marks. They are the most flexible, and where you use them is largely a
matter of taste. They can be used in a variety of situations.
Separating words or phrases in a list
When you are listing items, they should be separated by commas, as in We can offer a
choice of beige, black, dark blue or grey trim. Note that it is not usual to have a comma
before the final and or or only put them in if it is necessary for clarity. If the list is a
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A Guide to Good Business Communication
complex one, where each item is a long phrase or a clause, it might be better to use a
semicolon (see under Semicolons below).
You can also use commas to separate adjectives qualifying the same noun, as in Please
enclose a large, self-addressed envelope. In this context it is a matter of preference; as
long as the passage is easy to follow, it is not essential to use commas. One situation
when you must leave it out is when the adjective and the noun actually go together to
form a compound noun. In Please supply a large filing cabinet , for example, filing does
not qualify the noun, it is part of it. A filing cabinet is very different from an ordinary cabi-
net, so filing does not describe the cabinet in the way that large does. So you should
not have a comma between large and filing .
Joining two clauses
When two clauses are joined by a co-ordinating conjunction, you can use a comma or
not. So you can write either:
I strongly disagree and I think you should reconsider.
or
I strongly disagree, and I think you should reconsider.
Whether you use a comma in this context will depend not only on your own preference,
but also on the length of the sentence and the amount of separation you want to indi-
cate. If your sentence is long, you may want to put in a comma, introducing a pause so
that the reader can absorb what he or she has read so far. If the ideas in the clauses are
not closely related, you might put in a comma to increase the impression of separation,
whereas if they are very closely linked you might leave it out so as to bring them closer
in the reader s mind.
Separating an introductory signal
When you use a signalling device to indicate the direction your document is about to
take, you can use a comma to separate it from the rest of the sentence, as in Finally,
may I offer my congratulations on your success this year. This is again a matter of per-
sonal preference, but generally that slight degree of separation makes the sentence
easier to follow.
Creating parenthesis
You can use commas as parentheses, when you insert something which either expands
on the main part of the sentence without affecting it, or qualifies part of it. Here are two
examples:
This is not, I am sure, what the Board had in mind.
Mr Jones, the Senior Partner, will be in touch shortly.
In both these cases, the main part of the sentence stands perfectly well on its own, with-
out the section in parenthesis.
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Punctuation
If something is in parenthesis, you should always signal that with some punctuation
device, otherwise your reader will not know how it fits in with the sentence as a whole.
But you can also use brackets and dashes for this, as indicated below.
Introducing quotations
You must use either a comma or a colon to introduce direct speech or a quotation of a
full sentence from another source. You are unlikely to use direct speech very much in
business writing, but you might find yourself quoting from another source. If so, you
should say: Jonathan Wallace s report says, We must encourage our employees to par-
ticipate fully in the decisions that govern their working lives.
If you are only quoting a few words, then you should not introduce the quotation with a
comma. So you would say: Jonathan Wallace s report says that we should encourage our
employees to participate fully in the decisions that govern their working lives . In this case,
only the last part of the clause is a direct quotation, so no comma is used to introduce it.
Separating phrases and clauses for easier reading
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