Trip Hazards: Six Common Punctuation Errors to Avoid in Business Copy

Clear communications benefit your staff, reputation and bottom line, so don’t let these common punctuation errors knock your business’s copy off course.

When you’re focusing on the more interesting/important stuff like getting your key points across, witty word plays, or tone of voice, checking your punctuation can become a bit of an afterthought. But punctuation is vital for clear business communications – acting like a satnav to get your customers, employees and stakeholders from A (the moment you have their attention) to B (the point you want to make or the action you want to encourage).

Correctly used, punctuation will help readers arrive in comfort, understanding what you mean and ready to take the next steps. Incorrectly used, it could lead them in the wrong direction, risking confusion or misunderstandings, or it could result in them deciding they don’t really care what’s at point B after all.

The impact of unclear business copy

Keeping your punctuation in order isn’t about pleasing the grammar sticklers – it’s about making sure your business copy is clear and communicates the right message. Chances are, a missed comma won’t cost you $5 million like it did for a US dairy company, but the quality of your written communications can still have a direct impact on your business.

• In a recent survey, 50% of professionals said they lost 1-3 hours per week as a result of poor or unclear communication, with 29% losing 4-6 hours per week.

• Out of almost 1,500 people surveyed in the US, 97.2% said that grammar mistakes affect their perception of a company.

• Research shows that poor communication is costing companies between $9,284 and $30,000 per employee annually.

However, when it comes to punctuation – an essential element of clear business communications – many lack confidence in using it. A study on the factors influencing students’ business writing skills showed that under a quarter of students were confident in their ability to use it correctly.

Six common punctuation errors in business writing

There are many subtle punctuation mistakes that could be muddling up your business copy. A simple listing comma added in the wrong place. An opening bracketing dash missing its closing buddy. A semicolon popped in because it looks fancy. All have the potential to leave your readers unsure about what you mean. Here are the six most common punctuation errors I encounter when proofreading business writing (all incorrect examples are in italics):

1. Misplaced commas in lists

Using commas in lists helps to separate out items in that list – but misplaced commas can create confusion. Whether or not you routinely use an Oxford (or serial) comma – the comma used before the conjunction (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘nor’) in a list of three or more items – there are some situations where they always help with clarity.

For example, the following suggests an unusual family tree: ‘His inspirations included his parents, Steve Jobs and Madonna.’ Adding a comma after ‘Jobs’ clears that up. If the last item in a list already contains a conjunction, a comma also helps to make that clear. For example, ‘We need to share these results with HR, finance, and sales and marketing.’

2. Run-on sentences

Commas can do a lot of things, but they don't have the power to join two independent sentences on their own. This is called a comma splice and leaves you with a run-on sentence, neither of which are ideal for clarity. If you want to join two sentences together (perhaps to show cause and effect or to join two closely related thoughts/ideas), add a coordinate conjunction (and, but, yet, or, so, nor, for) after the comma or replace the comma with a semicolon.

3. Semicolon slip-ups

Semicolons are often thrust in where they don’t belong – like the punctuation equivalent of five-year-old me at ballet class. In a recent survey of the London Student Network, more than half of respondents did not know or understand how to use them.

There are two main uses of semicolons, and neither of them are to just make a nice change from a comma. The first is to join together two equal – and related – complete sentences (‘Katie loves toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch; she recently discovered seeded sourdough and now won’t accept anything less.’). The second is to separate items in a list that already include a comma. If the semicolons in this example were replaced with commas, it’d be very unclear how many people were involved: ‘David saw a lot of people at the school reunion, including Jon, his friend from science class; Mrs Robinson, his form teacher, and her husband; and George, the school bully.’

4. Bracketing blunders

Regular brackets (or parentheses) rarely cause problems. But other punctuation marks – when used in pairs – can also act like brackets, often creating confusion. Pairs of spaced en dashes, spaced/unspaced em dashes or commas can be used when you’re inserting additional information, but you need to make sure the surrounding ‘main’ sentence still makes sense. For example, this sentence still makes sense without the information between the dashes: ‘Katie decided that – despite how appealing a lie-in was – she would do the parkrun this weekend.’ But this doesn’t: ‘Katie forgot her parkrun barcode – which didn't really matter – because it was no personal best.’

5. Apostrophes with plurals

This often-misused punctuation mark has two main purposes: showing possession (Sue’s house) and indicating contractions (it is = it’s). Apostrophes aren’t used to make a noun plural (for example, ‘The three order’s arrived the next day.’) – commonly known as the greengrocer’s apostrophe – or to make an abbreviation plural (for example, ‘The three co-CEO’s all wanted a quote on the press release.’). The only plural situation where you could add an apostrophe for clarity is on singular letters. For example, ‘We call this the five A’s’ would read as ‘five As’ without an apostrophe.

6. Overusing scare quotes

These quote marks have many uses, including making your meaning clear, highlighting new or unfamiliar terms/concepts, or showing you’re using a word/term in an unusual or ironic way. But littering your copy with them can make for an uncomfortable read. If the word/sentence makes sense without them, don’t use them. Or if they are needed, for example, to highlight a new or unfamiliar term, just use them on the first mention and explain what the term means – then it’s no longer new/unfamiliar and doesn’t need highlighting again.

If all this scintillating punctuation chat has got you wondering whether your business copy could do with a check-up, why not ask me to look at it? I won’t just look at the punctuation, I’ll also check spellings, grammar, consistency, formatting, readability, flow and tone of voice – all backed up by 15+ years of experience in creating and proofreading business copy.