Formatting, Capitalization, and Punctuation

It's amazing what punctuation and general formatting can do to improve text. For example, quotation marks can turn a sentence:

From now on, ending a sentence in a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

Into a quotation:

"From now on, ending a sentence in a preposition is something up with which I will not put."

And from there, you can turn a random quote into something respectable by tagging on a name:

"From now on, ending a sentence in a preposition is something up with which I will not put."

 -Sir Winston Churchill

Another example:

If you cannot convince them, confuse them.

"If you cannot convince them, confuse them."

-Harry S. Truman

See? Having the proper punctuation and accreditation can make any sentence what it should be.

Quotation marks can also turn something hard to understand:

This is the Place Heritage Park

Into something understandable:

"This is the Place" Heritage Park

It took me some thinking when I saw the upper example here on a sign to riddle out what it was. I finally decided that if they had quotation marks in the title of the park, then it would be more understandably a quote and therefor the name of that particular monument.



Separating text onto different lines can turn a quotation:

"Even if you're lost you can't lose the love because it's in your heart."

Into a song:

"Even if you're lost you can't
Lose the love because
It's in your heart."



Proper capitalization can turn a bland, old, boring thing:

the white house

Into something of importance:

The White House



Italics can turn a statement:

"I command this particular drop of hot sauce to be really, really hot!"

Into something with emphasis:

"I command this particular drop of hot sauce to be really, really hot!"

I even skipped ahead and added an exclamation point where I could have put a period.



An exclamation point can turn a drab sentence:

Yay, we're here.

Into something exciting:

Yay, we're here!


I guess this post was sprouted by my writer's brain reading too many statuses on Facebook. I see them and always get to thinking about how people leave out quotation marks or commas or capitals. Leaving out crucial language marks can make something lose its charm. It's not only on Facebook; it's quite often in a lot of places. I'll see sentences around, in advertisements and other things, that are unrecognizable as quotes without the quotation marks.


I always try to remember stuff like this to better my writing. It may not seem like it, but even in my blog posts I consider a lot of the punctuation, spelling, and other grammar elements so as to create the best sentence to carry my meaning.