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This exercise offers practice in applying the guidelines for using punctuation marks. Before attempting the exercise, you may find it helpful to review these three pages:
- Top Four Guidelines for Using Commas Effectively
- Guidelines for Using Quotation Marks Effectively
- Semicolons, Colons, and Dashes
Lost in the Witchcrafted Woods
I'll never forget summer camp two weeks of cramps and campfires and slugs in my underwear. One night I got lost in the woods the witchcrafted spine-tingling woods. I don't know how I managed to get lost one moment I was marching along with my fellow scouts and the next I was marching alone. When I realized what had happened I responded like a true Boy Scout of America I sat down on a toadstool and sobbed. Oh I knew I was going to die out there. I waited for the gnats that sew your lips shut the owls that peck out your eyes the spiders that drop eggs on your tongue and the wolves that drag your carcass to their dens. I knew that by the time they found me there would be nothing left of me but my neckerchief slide. I imagined them taping it to a postcard and mailing it home to my dad. When I ran out of tears I started singing Oh, they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue. And just then a flashlight found me. My patrol leader asked what I was doing out here in the woods and I spit on my palms and said Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself. That night I dreamed of dragons in the pines and I woke up screaming.
When you are done, compare your work with the correctly punctuated version of the paragraph on page two. Keep in mind that the guidelines for using punctuation marks are flexible: several sentences in the paragraph may be correctly punctuated in more than one way.
