Copyediting Tip of the Week: National Punctuation Day

How will you celebrate National Punctuation Day? Copyediting has some ideas, plus a new contest!

National Punctuation Day

This Saturday, September 24, is National Punctuation Day. Founded by Jeff Rubin, the holiday seems readymade for copyeditors. Rubin’s site offers a few ways to celebrate his holiday, but for word professionals, the best way is to correct punctuation in your editing every day—not just on Punctuation Day—and instruct your writers on better punctuation usage. Gently, of course. Here are a few resources for punctuation lessons:

• Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Guide to Grammar and Writing
• Common Errors in English Usage
• HyperGrammar (University of Ottawa)
• Activities for ESL Students
• Grammar Ninja

If you want to read more about punctuation, check out:

• “Copyediting Tip of the Week: Logical punctuation?”
• “Copyediting Tip of the Week: Back off, tailgaters”
• The Writing Resource’s Punctuation Points: A collection of my writings on punctuation
• Shady Characters: The secret life of punctuation
• The “blog” of “unnecessary” quote marks
• On the Dot: A fun book about the history of the dot we use to end sentences
• Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style

Here’s one more way to celebrate the holiday: send Copyediting an example of a punctuation error found in your editing travels. We’ll publish some of our favorites in an upcoming blog post and choose one entry at random for the winner’s choice of one of these audio conference CDs:

• Punctuation Bugbears, Part 1: Colons, Semicolons, Dashes, and Hyphens
• Punctuation Bugbears, Part 2: Commas/Possessives
• Punctuation Bugbears, Part 3: All About Quoting
• Punctuation Bugbears, Part 4: Capitalization/Trademarks

E-mail your entry to editor@copyediting.com. One sentence per entry, one entry per person. Names and personally identifiable information should be changed to protect the guilty. Happy Punctuation Day! How will you celebrate National Punctuation Day? Share your ideas in the comments section below.