So welcome to week three of Writing in the Sciences.
I'm Kristin Sainani, from Stanford University.
So in the first two weeks of this course, we talked about some key principles of
effective writing. So, cutting unnecessary clutter from your
sentences, and also writing with strong active verbs.
So this week I want to continue our discussion of good writing, talking about
how to improve your sentence structure, and then also moving up all the way to
writing good paragraphs. For this first module I'm going to talk
about experimenting with punctuation. Now, as I've mentioned before, this is not
a course in grammar or punctuation. But there are a couple key punctuation
marks that I want to draw your attention to.
So these are. Some punctuation marks that you.
May not have dealt with for a while. So these are the dash, the colon, the
semicolon, and the parentheses. And you may not have used a lot of these
recently. Because you may have been told somewhere
along the way that it's improper to use them in scientific writing.
Or you just may have picked that up along the way that they don't get used often in
scientific writing. And, they're a little too exotic, or a
little too informal. However, in fact, these are perfectly fine
to use in scientific writing, if you use them correctly, as we're going to talk
about today. And, if you pick up any source of
professional writing, like if you've got a magazine lying around, or a book, pick it
up, take a look at one or two paragraphs and you'll notice that professional
writers use these tools all the time. And that's because they're super handy.
They work really well, they have a lot of functions, they're very, very useful.
So one of the major uses, is that they allow you to vary your sentence structure.
And that's something I'm going to talk a lot about today.
So that means, you know, we've been talking about, I've been showing you how
to kinda strip all of this extra material out of your sentences.
But that doesn't mean that I want you to write with only short and simple
sentences. If you wrote just all short and simple
sentences, you would see that your writing would be very boring.
Very monotonous. So, I'm actually going to encourage you to
vary your sentence structure, and really pay attention to that.
So that means using some complex sentences, and some short and simple
sentences. Some long sentences.
Some short sentences. So vary that up, that helps improve the
writing, it makes it less monotonous, it makes it more engaging for the reader.
It's very, very hard to vary your sentence structure and make interesting sentence
structure and write complex sentences if you don't use some of these punctuation
marks. If you are limited to just commas and
periods, there's not going to be a lot you can do.
So, the dash, the colon, the semi-colon and the parentheses are ways that you can
get creative with your sentence structure and make some nice, interesting, complex
sentences. So I'm gonna give you an example of the
kind of thing I'm talking about here. So I, I'm gonna give you an example of
something that I edited. Where I used a colon to actually take
three sentences and draw it into a single sentence.
So for the most part so far again I've been sort of stripping things from our
sentences. Today we're gonna do something a little
different, which is to aggregate multiple sentences into a single sentence where
it's appropriate. That means I'm gonna have a more complex
sentence at the end of the day. But it's gonna be more efficient, cuz it's
gonna get the idea across in a single sentence.
It's also gonna be a little bit more interesting to read because of the variety
in the sentence structure. So here's the original thing that I was
editing. It said.
Many types of cells and tissues develop a kind of directionality.
Certain events happen toward one end of the cell or the tissue or the other.
It's a phenomenon called cell polarity. No, it's okay, it's, you know, it's kind
of simple language but it's a little bit boring, right?
You know, like kind of all those sentences have the same kind of simple structure to
them. And, really, the purpose of those three
sentences is simply to tell you what cell polarity is.
So it doesn't seem like we really need to have three separate sentences there.
So what I did as I was editing this was to use a colon to introduce the definition of
south polarity and to kinda pull all these little pieces that the author wants to get
in and to pull them all together. You can see that I actually didn't change
a heck of a lot from the original other than to pull everything together and in
doing so I was able to drop a few words. So it says many cells and tissues develop
a kind of directionality called south polarity colon I am setting up the
definition certain events happen toward one end of the cell or tissue.
So there's probably even more we could edit out of that sentence but, you can see
that I pulled everything together into a single sentence, it's got a colon to setup
that definition. Now we only need one sentence, and it's a
little bit more interesting to read because it's got this variety, having this
colon in there where you have to take a pause.
It's a little bit more interesting. So this is the kind of thing we're gonna
be talking about today. So just to kinda ground you in the
different types of punctuation I'm gonna be talking about today.
Here are the punctuation marks that we have at our disposal, and here is their
power to separate, in the words of Strunk and White.
So Strunk and White talk about their power to separate, and that's a good way to put
it, I think. So you'll probably all really adapt it
using the comma and the period, to the. Comma is the, has the least power to
separate, and the period, of course, has the most power to separate.
But, in between the comma and the period, there are these four other really fun and
useful punctuation marks that you can use to place pauses and breaks in your
sentences. So, the comma has the least power to
separate. That means it's the shortest little pause.
It's just kind of like a brief pause in your sentence.
The colon is a bigger pause. So you're gonna take a little bit of a
bigger pause, a bigger break. The dash is an even bigger pause, and I
love the dashes you're gonna see. It has a lot of great uses.
It allows you to actually kinda just drop whole descriptions, whole explanations,
right in the middle of your sentence. And your reader's totally okay with it.
We're not going to overuse the dash, but it is a really cool punctuation mark.
So it's a pretty abrupt power to separate, a pretty abrupt pause there.
Then a parentheses, of course, is something where you're actually inserting
something extra into the sentence so it's a really big pause.
A semicolon actually demarcates the boundary between two separate sentences
that are, that you want to connect in a way.
So, but there's really kind of a, a fairly big pause cause there's, they're actually
considered two separate sentences. And then up here you have, of course, is a
complete stop. So, that's your biggest plus.
So, that's sort of the order of how these punctuation marks go in terms of their
power to separate. Now, the other thing to talk about is that
there is a little bit of difference in terms of the formality.
And this is why you may have been told before not to use some of these
punctuation marks. But in general, the dash and the
parentheses are considered slightly less informal than the comma, colon, semicolon,
and period. So that's why you may have in the
[inaudible], in the past. Been somewhat discouraged from.
Using the dash and parentheses. So, they are a little bit less formal, but
that doesn't mean that you can't use them at all in your scientific writing.
Again, if you look at professional writing, professional writers use these
all the time, the dash and parentheses. It just means they have to use them a
little bit sparingly. You don't wanna overdo it with the dash
and the parentheses. And we'll be talking more about that as we
go along here. Alright, so I'm gonna start with a
semicolon. That's the one that you're probably all
the most [inaudible], comfortable with. So, the semicolon is used to connect two
independent clauses. It's basically bringing together two kind
of small [inaudible]. That you want to connect and join in some
way. I'm gonna be using the word clause today,
in case you don't know what that is. It's basically just below a sentence in
rank, so it can be a, a very short sentence, or it may be an incomplete
sentence. But, it always has a, both a subject and a
predicate. A subject and a verb.
So just so you know what that term is when I throw that around today.
So, so here's a couple of examples of the use of the semicolon, semicolon to join
two independent clauses. So it says, Kennedy could be a cold and
vain man and he led a life of privilege. But he knew something about the world; he
also cared about it. So notice the use of the semicolon in that
second sentence. You're, getting this separation of these
two ideas. He knew something about the world; he also
cared about it. There's a kind of a pause there.
And it kind of puts emphasis on the: he also cared about it.
You can think about how this would have worked or wouldn't have worked as well had
other punctuation marks been used there. So for example, the author could have
said, but he knew something about the world and also cared about it.
But he could have just had a comma or just no punctuation there and run those two
ideas together. The difference there would have been that
there wouldn't have been the same emphasis on, he also cared about it, right?
So that's something to keep in mind, emphasizes it, put some emphasis on that
second part. And also had to use the period there.
It wouldn't have joined those two ideas together.
There's this nice. You know feeling here where you're joining
those two ideas together. Another example of the, of the semicolon
sort of a classic example of the use of the semicolon.
And this is from Dickins. It was the best of times; it was the worst
of times. Now clearly the semicolon is playing a
real important role here because it's joining those two ideas.
And this sentence, because it's two small sentences ere wouldn't actually work very
well if it weren't for the semicolon. If you put full period in there it
wouldn't be tied together in that nice way and then actually probably, kinda fall
apart. So the semi colon is really great for when
you want link two kind of smaller sentences together in a link that tells
the reader, hey, these ideas are joined. And they give some emphasis that you don't
get otherwise. So that's one use of the semicolon.
The other use of the semicolon that's gonna be common in scientific writing is
that semicolons are sometimes used to separate items in a list and, and
specifically when you've got a list of items where the items in the list contain
internal punctuation, so that means there might be commas within the items in the
list. And you can see, that if you then try to
set off the items in the list with commas, because there are commas within the items
it's gonna get really confusing. You are not gonna know where the
boundaries are between the items in the list.
So, you need something that's stronger power to separate, so you would use a
semicolon there. So you probably, mostly familiar with
this, you may have done this in your scientific writing before, but here's an
example. They dramatically reduced the number of
series in production. Notice there's a colon here, we are gonna
get to the colon next. In 1935.
Fourteen series were circulating notice the internal comma there had to meet the
semi colon to separate the item in the list in 1949.
By 1980 when the syndicate was in its final four year, final years, only four.
So you can see because the internal comma is there you clearly need a semicolon to
demarcate the boundaries of the items in the list.
So that's another use of the semicolon you may frequently find you need.
Okay. Next thing.
Moving on to the parentheses. So, the parentheses is used to insert an
afterthought, an explanation, some additional details.
To insert it into a passage, usually a sentence that is grammatically complete
without it. And it might be inserting a word, or a
phrase. Or you might even be inserting a whole
sentence into, a, a passage. So If you remove the material within the
parentheses however, the sentence has to remain grammatically complete.
In other words you can completely remove. That piece.
And it shouldn't change the main point of the sentence.
It should be grammatically the same. It shouldn't change the main point.
So, it's really an afterthought. And, in fact, when you put material in
parenthesis, you're actually indicating to your reader that it's perfectly okay
should the reader want to skip over the material with their eyes.
They just, kind of, want to read over it and ignore it.
So, a way that you can add some extra information, that may not be the most
important information, but it may be some little interesting tid bit.
It may be a more subtle, less important detail that you think is important to slip
in there but you don't want to have too much in a sentence so you kind of slip it
in, in parentheses as a way to get some extra information to your reader.
You might put something in parentheses where you think some readers may not know
the definition but others may. So by putting it in parentheses you're
saying well, if you know the definition to this word you can skip over it but if you
don't know it it's here if you need it. So it's a really cool way to slip in a
little extra information, but again, the key to using the parentheses correctly is
you have to try taking it out of the sentence and make sure the sentence still
reads fine without it and that the main point of the sentence doesn't change,
because you have to allow for the fact that the reader might skip over it
entirely and they're allowed to do that. So let me give you a couple of examples.
So this was I, I picked up something, I was reading in Newsweek the other day, I
picked up a sentence from there, so it says, what kind of teenager beats up the
misfit sissy kid, pinning him down and violently cutting his hair with a pair of
school scissors, note the use of a dash here.
Incidents, the incident from Romney's youth that the Washington Post famously
reported. And Romney, Romney famously didn't really
deny, back in May. So notice that the author here has slipped
in a little piece of information that he wants to clue you in to.
But, it's not necessary again that you, that, that piece be in there.
You could take that piece out completely and it would read fine.
You know and it's not absolutely essential.
So, the incidence from Romney's youth that the Washington poth, post famously
reported back in May. That would read fine.
But, the author really wants to give you this little extra piece of information.
So, he's, kinda of sliding it in there. Because it's in parenthesis you can get
more things in the sentence that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to fit
in. Here's an example, this is actually from
an article I was writing about statistics and I slipped in a little sort of a joke,
I was trying to be a little funny, so again I would encourage you to take some
risks in your writing, so I don't know if this joke came off alright or not, but
anyway I slipped it in there with some parenthesis.
So it says this is troubling because while there are plausible biological stories to
connect red meat with heart disease. It seems unlikely that eating too much red
meat could directly cause accidents and injuries, and then here's my little, you
know, trying to entertain the reader a bit.
Unless, as one my students quipped, red meat.
Commuters are swerving to avoid cows. So this was an article about statistics
about confounding. Anyway, I slipped that in there with some
parentheses. Alright.
So moving to the colon. Now the colon has several uses.
You can use a colon. A colon always has to come after a clause.
So again that means you have to have a subject and a verb.
A subject and a, a predicate. So you're always have that before the
colon. And then the colon introduces, often
introduces a list, or it might introduce a quote.
We don't use so many quotes in scientific writing, but if you are using quotes you
can use a colon to introduce it or it might introduce an explanation, a
conclusion or an amplification and I'm going to give you some examples of all of
those to show you what I mean. And Strunk and White, I am going to refer
a lot in this lecture to Strunk and White. The have some great material on these
different punctuation marks and I will give you the reference at the end if you
want to go and look at Strunk and White online.
And they say the colon has more effect than the comma, less power to separate
than the semi colon and more formality than the dash.
So again. As I told you, the colon is, more powerful
than the comma in terms of its ability to separate, but the, the semi-colon has more
power than a colon, and the semi-colon, and the colon are considered a little bit
more formal than the dash. So here's a colon used to introduce a list
or explanation. So, it says "The hydrogen bonds are made
as follows." Notice that it's, that's a clause.
The hydrogen bonds are made. So we've got a subject and a verb, colon,
pyramidine position one to pyramidine position one, pyramidine position six to
pyramidine position six. So another example, These pairs are.
Notice the subject and the verb there. These pairs are, colon, adenine purine,
with thiamine pyrimidine and guanine pyrimidine with cytosine pyrimidine.
And ofcourse you might recognize these sentences as being from the very famous
1953 paper by Watson and Crick On the Structure of DNA.
Again, illustrating. This is a great paper for illustrating.
You know, that they were o, okay with using colons and they were okay with using
in that paper, the word we, as we talked about last week.
Here's an example of using a colon for both a list and sort of an amplification.
So it says Washington has a simple solution to most governments it doesn't
like. Isolate them, slap sections on them and
wait for their downfall. So this is introducing, it's a list it's
also a bit of an amplification. This was something I must have been
reading I think in Newsweek. Here's another example, this was actually
kind of setting up a punch line. So it says the world it suffers from lack
of experience and a chronic democratic disease, compound senses, little bit of a
punch line there. So here's another example.
Of using a colon to introduce a list. This is actually introducing sort of, a
list of references. A summary of some literature that's out
there. So, it says, cross sectional studies that
have measured bone density in formerly anorectic women or in lead athletes up to
25 years after diagnosis or cessation of competition.
Have found mixed results including, normal bone density values for age.
Moderately reduce bone density, and an unexpectedly high proportion of
osteopedia, or osteoporosis. So, this colon is using, is being used
here to introduce a, actually a whole summary of the literature on this topic in
list form. Alright, I'm just gonna show you that, the
use of the colon to introduce quotes. Again we don't always or very often use
quotes in scientific writing but it, it sometimes comes up.
So this says, and again this was something I was reading in the New Yorker, Newsweek,
the ask not line follows right after an exaltation modeled on Franklin Roosevelt's
rendezvous with destiny, colon, this is introducing a quote.
In the long history of the world only a few generations have been granted the role
of defending freedom in our hour of maximum danger.
I do not shrink from this responsibility. I welcome it.
And then, in the next sentence, there's another colon that's used to introduce a
list of quotes. So it says, the note throughout is one of
alarm: the trumpet summons us again. The burden of a long twilight struggle.
And that uncertain balance of terror. I wanna point out one other thing about
this list at the end here. So, notice that that's a list of three
things. So the, the author was trying to pick out
some examples of quotes from this speech to illustrate a point.
And he picked to, and, and decided to include in his list, three examples.
Now he could of picked two of those examples, he could of picked.
There's probably way more in the speech that he could of picked.
He could of picked four. He could of picked five.
But notice that often times when a author is giving you a list of things especially
examples, they'll often limit it to three things.
This gets to a principle that I want to mention to you, which is called the rule
of threes. So the rule of threes are used for when
you are making list, or giving examples in your writing.
It's a rule of thumb, it doesn't mean you always have to use three but you are in
doubt, when you are not sure or there's some ambiguity about how many is the
correct number to include, default to three.
And the idea here is that kinda, three is just the ideal number, of examples or
items in a list, and, and the reason is that if you only put.
Two items or two examples, there's a feeling that it's not enough, right it's
not giving enough evidence, it's only a pair of examples it's not quite
sufficient. However if you go up to four or five,
you're kind of burdening your reader, it's a little bit of overkill.
So there's this thought that three is kind of the perfect number for these kind of
situations again that doesn't mean that, there's plenty of lists you're going to
have that have four or five items, but if there's some ambiguity, if you get to make
a choice on how many items and it's a little bit, kind of random how many,
whether you. Three or four, default to three, cuz
that's kind of the most pleasing number. So here's an example I gave you a similar
example of a sentence similar to this earlier.
To illustrate the use of semicolons in a list, but let me use this sentence again
to illustrate the point that they happened to pick exactly three numbers here.
So they gradually reduce the number of employees.
In 1980, the company had 300 employees. In 1995, 150.
By 2005, when the company was in its final years, only eleven.
Now notice that they're talking about a range of years here, from 1980 all the way
up to 2005. So they very well could have picked 1980
and 1982 and 1995 and 1997 and 2005. They could have pick five examples.
Or they could have picked two, but they chose to go with three here, because three
just kind of feels like the right number to illustrate the point, but without.
Having too much in that list. So, again, default to the rule of threes
when you're thinking about listening and examples.
If there's some, you know, if, if there's some wiggle room there for how many things
you have to include. Alright, one more example of the colon.
So again, the colon can introduce an explanation, an amplification, a
definition. I just wanna point out that sometimes the
colon is actually used, with what follows after the colon is itself.
A whole clause. So I told you that what comes before the
colon has to be an independent clause. You can also have the cases where you've
got, after the colon is an entire sentence.
Essentially, it's an entire clause with the subject and predicate.
And there may be some choice because, remember I told you the semicolon is used
to join independent clauses, so there may be some choice between whether to use a
semicolon when you have that situation, or a colon.
So you want to use the colon probably more so than, than the semicolon if the second
clause amplifies somehow, or extends the first.
So here's an example of that. Companies use Marsh for the same reason
that home sellers use real estate agents. Colon.
The agent's knowledge and experience is supposed to help the client get the right
deal at the right price. So notice that, that the first clause sets
up the second one. And if you're trying to put a semi-colon
in there it wouldn't feel quite right, because it's a setup that first clause is
setting up the second one, it's amplifying or extending the first one.
So a colon feels better there than a semi-colon because it's not a complete
pause because there's a, there's a relationship where the second part
actually amplify's or builds on the first part.
So that's a way to use the colon as well. So what follows the colon might itself be
a whole sentence or a whole clause. So those are some examples of how to use
the colon. I wanna point out a few misuses of the
colon, 'cuz sometimes people, get a little confused on how to, to use it.
So, couple of things that you don't wanna do when using the colon.
So here's an example of what not to do. So this one says, two aspects of alcohol
use are related to brain injuries. Notice they've got the, the subject and
the verb, so that's correct. They use the colon.
And then it goes, as a factor associated with risk of an injury, such as motor
vehicle crash, and as a factor in traumatic brain injury diagnosis,
recovery, or survival after injury. So, notice that it sounds funny when I
read that out loud. Because they're saying, two aspects are
related to brain injury. So aspects are nouns.
So what follows the colon, what your, the reader is expecting there is nouns.
But what they get, instead, is "as," a proposi-, a preposition.
We're getting prepositions there, so there's, that's funny, because the
reader's expecting nouns. So, if you set up nouns, you gotta follow
with nouns. So the correct way to do this one would be
to say something like, two aspects of alcohol use are related to brain injuries.
Its association, that's a noun, its association with risk of injury, such as
motor vehicle crash, and its post injury influences on diagnosis recovery or
survival after injury. So you gotta change those two nouns
because that's what the, setup had lead the reader to believe was coming.
Here's another use, a misuse, of the, of the colon.
This was actually, from an email I got about a job announcement many years ago.
I thought it was kind of funny because they'd reversed the colon, and what comes
before and after the colon. So the list, when you're setting up a list
with a colon the list comes after the colon, not before the colon.
So they said in one project we have a nutritionist, a psychologist,
statistician, a computer specialist, and dieticians: a whole range of specialties.
Well of course that's backwards. We want to set up the list with the colon
and then have the list follow. So you.
The correct would be, in one project we have a whole range of specialties.
A nutritionist, a psychologist, statictians, a computer specialist, and
dietitians. It's interesting that they have multiple
statictians and multiple dietitians, but only one of, one of each of the others.
I think this was a job advertisement for, for statistics actually.
So just be careful on the, colon, because sometimes it is misused.
Alright, I'm gonna end here with my favorite punctuation mark which is the
dash. You can use the dash to add emphasis.
Or to insert a kind of an abrupt definition or description and you can
really kind of drop anything you want in the middle of the sentence by setting it
off with dashes. And so it's really kind of a nifty tool
because it's very versatile. So you have an extra little thought you
want to drop in, an extra description, you can kind of just insert it in and it very
neatly works. The reader is okay with that kind of
abrupt break, that interruption to the sentence.
The reader is okay with it. So it's really a, a cool too.
I will warn you however that you don't want to overuse it because as I mentioned.
[inaudible] Considered just a little bit less formal than other punctuation mark.
And if you overuse it, it also really loses its impact.
And so I can remember when I was taking my very first journalism class.
The instructor told us that it was okay to use the dash.
And I, I thought this was just the greatest liberation to be able to write
with a dash. So I was using dashes all over the place.
And in my very first assignment that I turned into my editor for an internship I
was doing. I got a little note back on the top that
said you can't use the dash so much. So I learned quickly to not overuse the
dash. So you have to be a little bit careful to
use it sparingly. But it's a really great tool when you need
it. And Strunk and White say a dash is a mark
of separation stronger than a comma less formal than a colon and more relaxed than
parenthesis. It's kind of indicating we're, you know,
more relaxed. Again, it's kind of this abrupt, abrupt
interruption. And they do warn you to use a dash only
when a more common mark of punctuation seems inadequate.
So again use it sparingly, kind of reserve this tool for the really tough jobs, but
do use it because it's a great tool. So I am going to show you a bunch of
examples of how this dash works. So here's an example.
This is an example where using the dash kinda adds emphasis to the part that's in
the dash. So the drugs did more than prevent new fat
accumulation. They also triggered overweight mice to
shed signifigant amounts of fat-, up to half their body weight.
So notice how the use of the dash here really emphasizes how big that effect size
was. Here's another example of the dash.
Again, the dashes can be used to just drop things into the sentence, some extra
information that you want to get in there. So it says, to establish that the marrow
cells, also called, adult stem cells or endothelial precursor cells can colonize
the eye. Freid Landroid's colleagues first
transplanted stem cells from an adult mouse into th eyes of a new born mouse.
So, notice that, the author here is sticking some extra information, telling
you what else marrow cells are called. They're learning you to the other names
for marrow cells, by sticking it in, the dash.
Now. There are other options.
Right The author might have chosen to put that information in parenthesis.
But again, if they put it in parenthesis they are indicating to the reader that it
is not as important. So this author thought is was really
important to make the point that hey, [inaudible] cells are also called stem
cells which is a word that many, many people might know was important to make
that point. So he wanted to get that extra information
in, so he used a dash. Now, I wanna look at.
How the feel of these sentences would change if you, instead of using a dash,
chose some other punctuation mark like a parentheses or a comma.
So let's go back to that first example and try it with a comma instead.
Your gonna notice it's kind of clunky in law.
So if I replace the dash here with a comma, we get, the drugs did more than
prevent mere fat accumulation. They also triggered overweight mice to
shed significant amounts of fat up to half their body weight.
It kinda takes away the emphasis on the up to half their body weight.
It makes it a little bit more clunky there.
And of course, if you use commas to separate that extra information in the
second sentence, that's gonna almost make this a run-on sentence.
That's just too much going on in this sentence.
There isn't an abrupt enough pause. So to establish that the mural cells also
called adult stem cells or endothelial precursor cells can colonize the eye,
Freelander and his colleagues first transplanted.
It just becomes really long and clunky, so you need something more powerful to
separate right there. Alright, a couple more examples of the
dash. Oh, well, let me so you actually first
with the parentheses instead. If, if you used a parentheses in those two
examples rather than a dash. So in that first example, if I use a dash
for up to half their body weight, remember that put emphasis.
If I use a parentheses here instead, it kind of, completely buries the
information. It's like oh, it's up to half their body
weight, like that isn't important or exciting or interesting.
Where in fact, that's the most important and interesting part, that it was so big.
Now if you put a... The material in that second sentence
within parenthesis, again its not necessarily wrong in this case, its just
indicating to the reader that, that's inessential information.
So it always depends on your audience in this case, right, if you were riding for
an audience where you expected that most people would know that neural cells were
also called this other cells, this other names then you might put that information,
vary those information in parenthesis just for those who don't know, here is that
extra information. However if you were writing to an
audience, where you thought most of them wouldn't know these alternate names for
marrow cells. Which in this case the author was.
Then setting them out with dashes is more effective, because it forces the reader to
look at those and, and think about those carefully.
So when you put it in parenthesis here again, you're kinda saying, well I am
expecting most readers already know this. In this case the author didn't think most
authors, most of the readers would know that piece of information.
All right, few more examples. So here's another sentence where a dash
was used. So researchers who study shipworms say
these mislabeled animals, they're clams, not worms, are actually a scientific
treasure. So this.
Use the dash adds emphasis to that cute little interesting fact that these, these
shipworms are actually not worms at all but they're clams.
So it's a way to drop this extra information in, in kind of a cute little
way, it gives emphasis to that interesting little fact.
And notice how it's just kind of literally dropped right into the sentence.
You kind of drop it in wherever you want with dashes.
And the reader's okay with that. They, the reader understands that hey this
means I, I'm gonna have a little interruption here.
And the reader's okay with that. So that's very powerful.
One more example. I pulled this out of something I was
reading in The New Yorker. So it says this store which is windowless
and has clusters, clusters of unsmiling security guards standing at its entrances
as if it were the embassy of a particularly beleaguered nation.
Caters to rich Brazilians, members of the ten percent of the population who command
nearly half the national income and wear Chanel Valentino or Dolce and Gabbana.
So notice that there's just this whole. Great, long description just dropped right
into the middle of the sentence. And notice that it's okay for the reader.
Again, the reader's okay with that, because that's the expectation with the
dash. You can do that with a dash.
And notice also, that last week, I talked about the subject and the main verb in the
sentence up together, close to the beginning of the sentence?
So you might think that this sentence actually kind of violates that rule,
right? The store, and then we get all this
description, and then caters. But in fact because it's set off in dashes
the reader's okay with it. The reader is okay with you putting the
verb afterwards, it works just fine. It's a long sentence, but it works.
So, so you can violate that rule if you, setting things off in dashes like that.
So it's a way to insert a long description.
So let me just show you what would happen if instead of using a dash in those two
instances, I used a comma or parenthesis instead.
So, with commas instead, going to that first sentence, researchers who study
shippers say that mislabeled animals or claims that were not actually scientific
treasure. Well, that's a run-on sentence, right?
Commas aren't strong enough to set off an entire clause here.
So, clearly, commas are not going to work. And then in that second sentence, you
know, again, it's getting long-winded. The store which is windowless and has
clusters of unsmiley blah, blah, blah it's just, it's running on and your readers are
going to get lost. Your readers are especially going to get
lost here because you've got this really long description with several commas and
you don't get to the verb until caters and this is the case where the verb now is to
far from the subject because you have to much in between where it is not clearly
demarcated and set off with dashes. This is going to lose the reader because
it is too long without an abrupt pause. How about if we use parentheses instead.
So with parentheses instead, in that first sentence, you could, right, you could set
that information off, "They're clams, not worms", in parentheses, just to add kinda
extra information. But notice there's a couple of problems
with that. It, it buries the information, and this is
kind of, a really cute little interesting fact.
Also. If you read without the, if you take the
material in parenthesis out, if you read researchers who study ship burns, say
these mislabeled animals are actually a scientific treasure.
You are assuming that the reader also knows, already knows why they're
mislabeled. Right?
You're assuming that the reader already has that piece of information, so they
don't need you to put it there. It's extra information.
So, that's an assumption that you probably shouldn't make because probably most
readers don't actually know that fact. So parenthesis aren't great here because
they really vary information and they're assuming too much of their reader.
And if you use parenthesis with that second example from that's straight from
the New Yorker, the store which is windowless, and has blah, blah, blah, if
you, if you put that whole beautiful description in parenthesis it just
completely takes away from that description as if that description is not
important, so that really doesn't work either.
Alright. So, I'm going to give one more example, of
the use of the dash to end on here. But this one you have to bare with me a
little bit because it takes a little bit of a setup before I get to this end.
I have to give you a little bit of background for you to understand just how
great this sentence is. So you need to know a little bit about
baseball. Not too much about baseball, but a little
bit about baseball here. So I'm going to give you the background.
So I'm not a, a particularly, particularly big baseball fan or anything.
But I did grow up in New England and so therefore I am a diehard Red Socks fan.
So probably most of you are familiar with the Red Socks.
And you probably have heard that at one time the Red Socks sort of were thought to
have a curse on them. So the Red Socks went 86 years without
winning a World Series. And they were said to have a curse and it
was because basically. It wasn't just that they didn't win the
World Series and had this long dry spell, period.
It was that they got within, you know, a hair's breadth of winning the World Series
several times, and then just, it just, they just lost it on the stupidest errors.
And so they got really, really close and they thought they were cursed, because
they, and they should have won, but they didn't.
And so many of you may recall, I, well I was old enough to I, I am old enough to,
to actually recall the, when this happened in 1986, a near miss.
And so the Red Sox were ahead in the world series they were one game ahead in the
world series. It's game six and so the way the world
series works is they had to win four. And so they had won three already if they
won this game, they would win the world series.
It was against the Mets and when they got to the tenth inning, they were ahead, they
had you know, they'd gotten ahead in the tenth inning so all they had to do was get
the other team out. There were two outs down, one out to go.
Is pretty much over, right, the, the, the, TV announcer is popping the champagne, my
whole family, I was pretty young then, my whole family went to bed, we thought it
was over, it was late. Just one little out to go.
Well, what happens of course for those of you who know or if you don't know it's a
routine grounder, should have been caught, should have been an easy, easy out, but
what happens the ball goes through this is the infamous error by Bill muck-, Bill
Buckner. The ball goes through Bill Buckner's legs,
they don't get the out, the Mets go on to win that game.
Not only that but they then go on to win the next game in the Series, they win the
World Series the Red Sox who were this close, lost it.
So, so that's sorta the, the history of the Red Sox, that you need to know to
kinda understand this example I'm gonna give.
So, we're gonna dial forward now to 2004. So in 2004 the Red Sox finally after 86
years won the World Series, and it was done in dramatic fashion.
So they were down three games in the American League Series.
And they came back to win four in a row against the Yankees, so they made it to
the World Series. They won three in a row against the
Cardinals. So now all they gotta do is win that last
game and they've done it. They've won the World Series.
So. It's the fourth game, they're ahead in the
fourth game, it's down to the last inning, they're winning, it's down to two outs,
and there's just that one out to go. So everybody, of course, is on pins and
needles because, everybody's just waiting for the other shoe to drop, right?
They're waiting for the, the, the curse to show its, rear its head.
So the, the batter comes up. It's a routine rounder to the pitcher.
The pitcher picks it up and now normally in these kinds of cases he would throw the
ball to, to the first baseman and it's not a very long distance, the baseman would
catch it and that would be it. Pitcher doesn't do that.
Right. The pitcher knows the whole history of the
Red Sox. Doesn't wanna take the chance that
something's gonna go wrong in the middle of that toss to first base.
So literally the pitcher kinda trots right up to the first baseman.
Gets about as close as he can to the first baseman and tosses the ball underhanded
into the first baseman's glove. You know literally just get as close as he
could to make sure that made it into that guys glove.
He made the out and he was as careful as he possibly could be.
So he made the out. They did win the World Series.
But that whole gesture of going up to the first basemen and being so extra careful
sort of just encapsulated the whole history, the whole 86 year history of the
Red Sox. Okay, so that was a really long set up I
realize, but you, you'll appreciate it when you see this sentence and this use of
the dash. So here's the sentence.
It says, baseball is the only game that's played everyday, which is why its season
often seems endless right up to the inning and the out.
- a little toss over to first base when, wow, it ends.
So that little toss over to first base, that's the reference to the pitcher kinda
walking up to first base and just lobbing the ball right to him.
So you can see that's a really, really powerful sentence if you kinda know that
whole background. The author here has dropped this whole
very powerful image right into the middle of the sentence and done it so
effectively. And the only way you could really do this
here is with a dash. So I, I just love this sentence, I think
this is by Roger Angell is the writer of this one.
And let me just show you what would happen if we used other punctuation here.
Clearly, it's not gonna be effective. So, what if we used commas here?
So, if you use commas. Baseball is the only game that's played
everyday, which is why often it seems its off its right up to the inning, a little
toss over to first base when, wow, it ends.
There's just no emphasis on that amazing image.
If I used parentheses instead, of course, it would completely, burry that little
image and make it seem like that wasn't important when, of course, it is.
So, you can see that parentheses isn't, strong enough here, either.
It's like that, that image wasn't, this powerful image.
So clearly the dash has this really great use.
Again don't overuse it but do try to use it sometimes cuz you'll see it's just this
really great tool that you have in your toolbox.
I want to end here with a couple of references and citations.
So I've been referencing Strunk and White quite a bit and that's the elements of
style. You can actually access the entire text of
that online. So, if you have some extra time you can go
that, that link there and you can read Strunk and White.
And it probably wouldn't take you more than a couple of hours.
It's pretty short, and they go over a lot of the same kind of things that I am
talking about in this class. But, it's a really good reference.
The other thing I'm going to put on this slide here is, as I mentioned a couple of
weeks ago, I don't usually give exact citations for these little snippets, these
little sentences that I pull from here and there.
But today, since most of the sentences I was showing were examples of the good use
of punctuation and, and good writing, I wanted to just acknowledge the various
authors from which I pulled those little sentences.
Those were mostly from Newsweek and The New Yorker and a couple of other sources.
>> The preceding program is copyrighted by the Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Junior University. Please visit us at med.stanford.edu.