Poynter Online - Tool # 35: Punctuation

I'm a fan of Roy Peter Clark's series on Fifty Writing Tools from Poynteronline. Here's a recent entry on Tool # 35: Punctuation.

Clark's common sense approach to punctuation focuses on "tools, not rules." His forte is analogy and example as he explains how punctuation can help shape writing. Here's an example on the semicolon: "The semicolon is what we called in driver education a 'rolling stop.' More muscular than the comma, it is most useful for dividing and organizing big chunks of information."