Nearly every professional-from sales rep to scientists, from admin to accountant-writes regularly on the job. But punctuation doubts often slow down writing and complicate editing and proofreading. Writers lose time debating with themselves and others about punctuation-time they could focus on their all-important content. Are you one of them?
Do you rewrite sentences because you worry that your punctuation is wrong? Do you insert commas in other people’s work, then fret over whether they belong?
Worry no more. Punctuation for Professionals will answer your persistent questions about punctuation clearly and conclusively. This self-paced, interactive course on punctuation will increase your knowledge, confidence, and professionalism.
Most punctuation dilemmas have straightforward, quick solutions, which you will learn in Punctuation for Professionals. Mastering the basic rules and using a backup quick-reference guide, you will be able to punctuate documents quickly and easily. You will save time in the writing, editing, and proofreading steps.
What will you learn in this course?
- Apply the punctuation rules that are standard in the United States and Canada.
- Insert commas where they support and clarify your message.
- Add apostrophes to create possessive forms, but keep them out of simple plurals. Recognize whether you need clients, clients, or clients’.
- Insert hyphens where your readers need them. Know whether to choose follow-up or follow-up, one-week, or one week.
- Use semicolons the right way: to connect closely related sentences and link complex elements in series.
- Use colons to punctuate greetings, present content forcefully, and introduce lists.
- Use a dash for style and emphasis-and recognize the difference between dashes and hyphens.
- Set off certain titles with quotation marks and italics, but leave other titles alone.
- Place commas, periods, and other punctuation mark correctly inside or outside closing quotation marks and parentheses.
- Punctuate bullet points correctly and consistently.
First, you will take a pre-assessment to find out what you know. Then you will learn through short interactive presentations in which you will hear and see a concept illustrated, then apply it yourself. You will test your knowledge in written and online exercises, mini-tests, and comprehensive reviews-all with answers revealed instantly. After completing the lessons, you will strengthen your skills with editing challenges and review exercises. You will recognize how much you learned when you compare your pre- and post-assessment results.
To complete the course, you will need to score 85 percent or better on the post-assessment, and you can retake the test until you are successful.
Your learning materials in Punctuation for professionals include 40-item pre- and post-assessments, a 46-page course notebook, a 2-page quick-reference guide, 15 online practice quizzes, and 10 learning reinforcement sheets. You will also be able to download a PDF of the 240+ slides featured in the course.
Once you register, you will have 90 days to complete the course.
Who should take this course?
- Professionals who want to refresh their knowledge of punctuation to write, edit, and proofread faster.
- Those who want to gain confidence that the business documents you create or approve are flawlessly professional.
Enroll in punctuation for professionals if you want to:
- Follow the latest rules of punctuation, with up-to-date information at hand to support your punctuation choices.
- Help others by giving them accurate, clear explanations to correct their punctuation errors.
- Know when to follow your grammar and spelling checker and when you can safely ignore it.