Answer 4

Question 4   Punctuate the following piece of writing:

As soon as he saw her he called out wait for me she replied that she was in a hurry

Answer

As soon as he saw her, he called out, “Wait for me!” She replied that she was in a hurry.

The first comma separates a phrase that tells us when he called out. The comma following out indicates a slight pause before the first speech marks or inverted commas which precede that first word, Wait, that is actually spoken. This is direct speech. The exclamation mark indicates the impact of the spoken words and the second pair of speech marks indicates that the speech ends here. The final sentence is reported speech – we know that she said something more but her actual words are not reported and the full stop indicates the end of the final sentence.

Why is punctuation important?

When we speak, pauses and shifts in the sound of our voices guide the listener. Read aloud the sentence above and you should hear a short pause after out. This alerts our listener to the change to quotation. A longer pause after me indicates that something new is going to follow in a new sentence. For readers, punctuation provides similar guidance.

If you can speak English then you can understand English.
If you understand English then you will use it more effectively.

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