What this lesson covers
- The delete test: lift it out and read what is left
- Why non-essential information needs a mark on BOTH ends
- The three fences, and why the pair has to match
- The essential case, which gets no punctuation at all
- A practice question with the clock running
Chapters
- 0:04Can you delete it?
- 0:17The setup
- 0:49The delete test
- 1:45The three fences
- 2:15Your turn
- 2:49Three ways this goes wrong
- 3:19Lift it out, then fence it
Lesson transcript
The narration of the video, word for word, under its chapter headings.
0:17The setup
Every non-essential question is really one question. Can you lift this information out of the sentence and still have a sentence? If you can, it has to be fenced off on both sides. If you cannot, it gets nothing at all.
0:49The delete test
Lift out the middle. A record of every ship that passed between eighteen seventy-one and nineteen oh four. What is left? The lighthouse keeper's logbook sold at auction last spring. Still a sentence, still the same logbook. So the middle is non-essential, and it has to be fenced on both sides. Now look at the mark that opened the fence. A dash. A fence closes with the same mark that opened it. That is C. A closes with a comma. You cannot open with a dash and close with a comma. The pair has to match. B closes with nothing at all, so the fence never shuts and the reader never learns where the interruption ended. D uses a semicolon. A semicolon separates two sentences. It does not fence anything.
1:45The three fences
There are only three fences: two commas, two dashes, two parentheses. Grammatically they do the same job, so the test never asks you to pick between them. It asks whether the fence closes, and whether it closes with the same mark it opened with. Commas are quiet, dashes are loud, parentheses are an aside. That is the only difference.
2:15Your turn
Your turn. Run the delete test first. Ten seconds. B, and the answer is no punctuation at all. Delete who finish the lab early, and the sentence changes meaning. Now every student may leave. The clause is doing work, so it is essential, and essential information never gets fenced.
2:49Three ways this goes wrong
Three ways this goes wrong. Mixing the pair, a comma in and a dash out. Closing a mid-sentence interruption with only one comma, which is half a fence. And punctuating by ear, because a pause is not a rule.
3:19Lift it out, then fence it
Lift it out. If the sentence survives, fence it on both sides.
Read the written version: the Boundaries (Punctuation) strategy guide, then try 25 hard Boundaries (Punctuation) questions with full explanations. Both are free, no account needed.