Language Lunch: Punctuation

The Language Lunch series is a fun and time-saving opportunity to improve your English-language competence over a light buffet lunch which will be provided free of charge. In the summer semester, the series continues with three workshops: (1) Punctuation, (2) Telling your Research Story (for Academic Staff), and (3) How to write Effective E-Mails. You are welcome to book one, two or all three workshops, but in any case please make sure that you register separately for each Language Lunch.

Content

At first glance, punctuation may seem like a minor issue. Surely commas, hyphens and semi-colons can’t make that much of a difference? Actually, they can. Punctuation is an essential tool for making texts clear and increasing their rhetorical impact. In English, there are fewer hard-and-fast rules governing punctuation than in German. Yet perhaps paradoxically, that tends to make it more difficult, not less, to punctuate correctly.

• To appreciate how punctuation contributes to efficient, reader-friendly written communication.
• To distinguish between the functions of different punctuation marks, in particular the comma, the semi-colon and the dash.
• To use punctuation more confidently.