← Chapter 12
English Composition · Chapter 12

What the Mark Is Doing

Punctuation is structural signalling, not breath marks — so forget the advice about putting a comma “where you would pause.” Drop different marks into the same seam and find out which are legal and what each one promises. Then switch two commas on and off and watch the facts of a sentence change, because that is the one comma pattern that genuinely alters what you said.
What that mark just did
StartChoose a mark on the left.