Description

Hello, and welcome to the best (well-paced, well-structured, well-presented and complete) English punctuation course on Udemy.  This course is studded with workshops, quizzes and assignments that will engrain proper punctuation directly into your fingers so you don’t have to think about it while you’re writing.  Warning, this short course, though targeted at beginning writers, is a challenge to complete!

Knowledge of proper punctuation is essential to writing grammatically correct English prose and dialog.

So, everyone must know how to use proper punctuation, right?  Wrong!

Unfortunately, existing training on English grammar and punctuation makes using proper punctuation complicated.  Until now!

I’m here to tell you that learning proper English punctuation need not be complicated nor take a long time.  In fact, I teach you how to write virtually anything using proper punctuation in the second four-minute lecture.  Since the second lecture is free to preview, you should watch it to establish a sound foundation for your future writing.  The remainder of the course expands upon the second lecture by extending and elaborating on the fundamental rules of punctuation and by providing plenty of detailed examples.

In this course, I explain everything you need to know about punctuation to be a great writer in just under two hours.

How do I accomplish this?

   By focusing on the simplest and most common punctuation needs of most writers.
   By deemphasizing the most uncommon forms of punctuation.

There are only 15 punctuation marks in the English language: period (.), question mark (?), exclamation mark (!), comma (,), double quotes (“”), apostrophe (‘), hyphen (-), parentheses (), semicolon (;), colon (:), dash (–), ellipsis (…), slash (/), braces({}) and brackets ([]).

In the first section of this course, I discuss how to write virtually anything using the first 5 punctuation marks.  By the end of the course, I explain how to use the remaining punctuation marks.

So, I explain all 15 punctuation marks while focusing on only 5.

Question: How complicated can that be?

Answer: Not complicated at all.

In this course, I discuss:

   Fundamental rules for punctuation
   Placing punctuation relative to word spacing
   Comma usage
   Oxford Comma
   Comma Alternatives
   Uncommon Punctuation
   Using Apostrophes for Possession and Contraction
   Using Hyphenation to Join Words
   Punctuating Dialog

The course concludes with an overview of all the rules (accompanied by a downloadable rule sheet) and a workshop in which I demonstrate how to write using the rules.  Along the way, you’ll be challenged with 6 quizzes and 6 homework assignments immediately following demonstration workshops captured in Microsoft Word.  If you complete this course, you’re writing will improve dramatically due to the fact that you will fully understand English punctuation!

So, here’s what you should do:

   Check out the course syllabus below for an overview of what you’ll learn.
   Then watch Lecture 2 for an overview of the Four Rules of Punctuation.
   Conclude by enrolling in the course.

P.S. This course builds upon the information presented in my “Words and Space” course or equivalent knowledge.

I’ll see you in the classroom,

—Brian
Who this course is for:

   Students brand new to English writing who want to learn to write using flawless punctuation.
   Students who are experienced with English writing who want to brush up on their writing skills by learning to write using flawless punctuation.

Requirements

   This course demonstrates punctuation using Microsoft Word 2016. Students will need access to a similar editor to follow along and complete assignments.
   This course demonstrates copy editing your own work using the free version of the Grammarly Word plugin. Students will need to download and install the Grammarly word plugin to follow along.

Last Updated 10/2021