Many writers overuse quotation marks to add emphasis, tone, or suggestive accents. While it is occasionally a good practice to make a word stand out, it is incredibly annoying when you make too many words stand out. If you try to raise the emphasis, suggest a new meaning, or add tone to too many words in a sentence, you muddle up the real emphasis and tone.
Posts Tagged ‘quotation marks’
Abusing quotation marks
Thursday, March 29th, 2012Punctuation abuse
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012Misuses of punctuation can be annoying and such misuses have become commonplace in personal and business correspondence. The overuse of “quotation marks” and the overuse of parentheses (these neat little devices that let you slide comments into a sentence) are two good examples I see everyday.
A Cacophony of Emphasis
Friday, September 30th, 2011With all the features of modern word processing, we have many alternatives for adding emphasis and tone to our writing. While it is occasionally a good practice to make a word stand out, it is incredibly annoying when you make too many words stand out. If you try to raise the emphasis, suggest a new meaning, or add tone to too many words in a sentence, you muddle up the intended emphasis and tone.
Punctuation abuse
Thursday, September 29th, 2011Misuses of punctuation can also add redundancy and clutter in any writing. Two examples in today’s world are the overuse of “quotation marks” and the overuse of parentheses (these neat little devices that let you slide comments into a sentence).
