The usage of punctuation marks in writing among undergraduate students at Makerere University

Abstract

Punctuations marks play a significant role in academic writing. They are used in writing to add meaning to a sentence because any slight mistake in punctuation, the meaning of the sentence may change and it may also make the reader to get confused while reading a written text or course work or test assignments thus these are considered to be mechanical errors in English gramma. This study seeks to examine the punctuation marks where students are most likely to make errors when using them in their academic writing and to really show these students can be sensitized more about using these particular marks in writing and through observation of the test scripts, course works of the students and also interviewing the students, I was able to identify that hyphen, dashes, colons, semicolons brackets are the punctuation marks where students make errors when using them. It was concluded that most of the students don't know where and when to use these punctuation marks in writing and the recommendations were also made that teachers/ lecturers and students have to work hand in hand that is to say, lecturers focusing on these mechanical aspects to provide more knowledge about using them and also students have to try writing these marks in any text at least every day, this will improve their writing skills hence producing better academic scripts.