Brackets, Dashes and Pairs of Commas This presentation matches Objective S3.

Brackets, dashes and pairs of commas This presentation will show you how to improve your writing by expanding sentences using pairs of brackets, dashes and commas.

Brackets

Brackets The actual date of the birthday is not necessary to understand the sentence. It is additional information and not very important. The writer does not want to distract us from the main idea of the sentence. To add extra information without distracting too much from the main idea you can add it between brackets.

Dashes

Dashes The sentence makes sense without the additional information. The extra information is quite useful though and this time the writer wants to draw our attention to it. The extra information is inserted between dashes. When we wish to provide additional information and emphasize it, we use a pair of dashes.

Commas Students would complete this activity orally or as a written exercise.

Commas Sometimes we wish to add additional information just to make what we are writing a little clearer. If we do not wish to draw too much attention to the extra information, we can use a pair of commas.

Quiz This activity can be done individually, with a partner or as a class activity.

Answers Here are the answers. Did you get them right? Many people believe in UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects). Everybody stood up when she (the teacher) entered the room. His aftershave - talk about smelly - made me feel sick I stopped writing - had I heard something outside - and went to the window. Tom, the captain of the team, was a very brave player. Sebastian, playing hard to get for too long, ended up with nobody to dance with at the party.

Activity Design some sentences of your own which have additional information. Write some which will need brackets, some which will need brackets and some which will need commas. Don’t add the punctuation. Swap your sentences with a partner and have them add the correct punctuation. Then swap back and see how they did. If they used different punctuation to you, discuss why each choice was made. You may both be right. The success of this activity will partly depend on how well the students construct their sentences in terms of their attitude to the additional information. What one might consider worth emphasizing another might feel should be relegated. This isn’t really a problem and can be used as a teaching point to discuss making the decision on which punctuation is most appropriate.