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sary comma. It had a comma after the last word in the series before the word ‘because’
although a comma was not needed.

3. How important do you think are punctuation marks?

Sample answer:
Punctuation marks are important because they elucidate the meanings of sentences.
They separate certain thoughts, thereby making understanding much easier. Posi-
tions of punctuations can also change the meaning or thought of the sentence.

1. Your colleague asks for your help in identifying when it would be proper
to use a comma and a semicolon. Please explain and illustrate sample sen-
tences.

Sample answer:
One of the common times where commas are confused with semicolons is in joining
two sentences. If you join two sentences with the use of a conjunction such as for, “so/
and /but”, then a comma should be placed before the conjunction. On the other hand,
if you don’t use a conjunction to connect your sentences, then a semicolon should
be placed at the end of the first sentence. The use of commas and semi-colons are
unavoidable, so we need to enhance more use of it and practice well. Be sure that our
punctuations and positions are all correct.

2. You received a letter requesting your establishment’s sponsorship for an or-
ganization’s activity. Please note at least two punctuation mistakes in the
following sentences:
“The ABD organizations’ annual food drive will be held at October 12th, of
this year. The recipients will be the local homeless shelter, and two orphan-
ages, they will genuinely benefit from our help. We, sincerely, hope for your
assistance; we wish to hear from you soon? Let’s make this event a success”.

Sample answer:
In the first sentence, if the word organization is in the plural form rather in singular
form, it is right to place the apostrophe right after s. The comma right after shelter
should be omitted since “and” is the conjunction used to connect two different vari-
ables. A period should be placed as an ending after orphanages since that sentence
already has a definite thought/meaning. A new sentence “They will genuinely benefit
from our help “, should be ended with a period since it is a declarative sentence. The
fourth sentence is full of unwanted commas. It should be written as this, “We sincerely
hope for your assistance.” The fifth sentence is declarative, but a question mark was
used. Question marks are only used for interrogative sentences.

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