Punctuation is Rhetorical

Punctuation does more than adorn words; it tells us how to read words. At the end of this exercise, I hope you will be able to think more critically about punctuation in all its various roles: creating meaning, controlling tempo, and conveying emotion.

Group Work

To learn how to analyze punctuation deeply, summarize the message of the text and explain how the punctuation contributes to that message. What does the significant punctuation usually tell us in any sentence? You might describe the role/"rule" of each mark, which you are welcome to Google. What effect does the mark have on the content?


1. Examine the effects of the punctuation in these titles:

Attention. Deficit. Disorder.

Mestiz@ Scripts, Digital Migrations, and the Territories of Writing



2. Examine the differences between the following statements, created solely by punctuation. Why does one of the versions produce a more humorous effect than the other?

Say ‘NO’ to Drugs. From the NMB Police D.A.R.E Officers.	Say ‘NO’ to Drugs from the NMB Police D.A.R.E Officers.
A woman without her man is nothing.	A woman: without her, man is nothing.
He eats shoots and leaves.	He eats, shoots, and leaves.
Let’s eat, mother.	Let’s eat mother.
Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will you let me be yours?	Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

3. Examine the effects of the parentheses & italics.

From “Let American be America Again”
-Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.



4. Analyze the effects of the ellipsis, present in one textual variant. 

From Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ozymandias"

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

5. Analyze the following rhetorical questions. How does the fact that the sentences are questions affect their meaning? How do they work on an audience?

Will we be better off if more Americans get a better education? Will we better off if we depend less on foreign oil and more on our own ingenuity? Will we be better off if we start doing some nation-building at home? Will we be better off if we bring down our deficits in a balanced, responsible way without gutting the very things that we need to grow? When we look back four years from now, or ten years from now, or twenty years from now, won’t we be better off if we have the courage to keep moving forward?
--President Barack Obama, "Remarks" 

Can't Get Enough Punctuation?

Kathryn Schulz, "The 5 Best Punctuation Marks in Literature"
John Dawkin, "Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool"
Jennifer Schuessler, "If Only Thomas Jefferson Could Settle the Issue: A Period is Questioned in the Declaration of Independence"
Anne-Marie Womack "Punctuation Matters" in The Pocket Instructor: Literature, edited by Diana Fuss and Bill Gleason for Princeton University Press.