THE EFFECTS OF PUNCTUATION MARKS MISUSE

ON THE WRITTEN COMPOSITIONS OF GRADE 10-

CASTANEDA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study Lacks of proper use and applications of punctuation
marks would be equated to a new car without an effective brake system. That is, the
knowledge of the other elements of the language, without the ability to skilfully use
the punctuation marks will not able enable an individual to write meaningfully and
effectively in the language. Certain problems of ambiguity cannot be solved in
English but only through the use of punctuation marks. Linguists such as (Adekunle)
have agreed it is hard , if not impossible, for one tho write an essay appropriately in
English or understand the same without properly applying these punctuation marks. It
is unanimously agreed, by linguistics across the world that structure in English is
complex because it is composed of many interdependent ideas that I need to be
marked before they would be understood by readers. As such, the need is reinforced
for the use and application of punctuation marks, in the process of writing and reading
such structures. Murthy(2007) believes that “punctuation plays an important role in
developing writing skills “. Here, it is clear that the use of punctuation marks in
necessary in writing an essay meaningfully and getting what is written understood. It
could also be understood from the above that, not even at the secondary school level,
but at whatever level one must use punctuation marks in order to write meaningfully
and in order to put the text through.

STATMENT OF THE PROBLEM

 Is this Punctuation Mark affect the readers
 Is something important you learned from Punctuation Mark?

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The research aims at finding out the effect of the use selected punctuation marks on
the performance of students in essay writing in general. And in particular, the research
would benefit the following people.

ASSUMPTION OF THE STUDY

This research work has the following assumptions; the use of punctuation marks helps
in conveying and understanding of the meaning of the written texts in English.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

The fact that punctuation marks have something to do with both written and spoken
aspects of English Language, the study is delimited to the written aspects of the
language. Also, in relation to the population it is delimited to SS 2 students in senior
secondary schools in Kano State, thus, it does not involve the other SS classes
 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Punctuation Marks
 Are symbols that are used to aid the clarity and comprehension of
written language. Some common punctuation marks are the period,
comma, question mark, exclamation point, apostrophe, quotation
mark and hyphen.