9. Why is it Important to Punctuate Right?

A student is persuaded that grammar and punctuation matter.

When I was studying for my ‘O’ levels at school, I don’t recall giving grammar a second thought. Maybe that’s because my classmates and I had had grammar instilled into us from a very early age: from parents, friends of parents, and of course from our teachers. Whatever the subject – be it history, geography, physics or biology – spelling, punctuation and grammatical syntax were of primary importance, so it’s not surprising that our essays read exceedingly well.

Of course, this is a few years ago now (just one or two!), and education has changed its focus quite dramatically. So listening to Paul’s students talking about their own concerns was really interesting.
“I get why it’s important, but isn’t the content even more important?” piped up one of Paul’s upper sixth history students over lunch that day.
“Content is vital, Jade, but it’s irrelevant if it’s misunderstood.”
“What d’you mean?”

I pulled a plastic folder out of my bag. “OK, take a look at this”, I replied, sliding a piece of paper across the lunch table. “The same short paragraph has been typed out four times, but the grammar or punctuation has been changed on each one. Tell me what you think.”
The girl read the paragraphs to herself. Slowly, a smile began to spread across her young face.
“They mean different things, Miss!”
“You’re right”, I laughed. “And that’s what I was getting at...”
“Miss, I want to work in media. Films, TV and so on. But everything there’s spoken, not written, isn’t it? So is it important for me?”
“Well, you want to get into college to study media, don’t you?”
“Yep!”

“And you’ll have to take exams in order to get the grades you need... no doubt the college you go to will ask you to write essays... and when you eventually get a job in a production or media agency, you’ll have to work on all sorts of projects, from providing briefs for suppliers, through to writing and sending emails to contacts. If you can’t make yourself understood...”

“I get it, I get it!”
“So, Miss... this Go to Grammar thing...”
“Grammar To Go, George!”
“Yeah... well, it’s quick is it?”
“As lightening! Or, truthfully, as quick as your broadband connection.”
“And I won’t never have to use any dictionary?”
“You won’t ever have to use a dictionary, Jill. And you won’t ever have a reason to make a mistake again! Want to take a look? My laptop has wi-fi...”
“Yeah, that’d be great!”

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