English for personal assistants

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Punctuation in written English is essential for conveying messages clearly. The full stop serves two primary purposes: it marks the end of a sentence (e.g., The European Union has faced opposition from various political parties. There is still a long way to go before Europe is truly united.) and indicates abbreviations (e.g., Mr., Dr.). Keeping sentences short and simple enhances readability. The comma indicates pauses between sense groups (e.g., The car industry expanded in the eighties, slowed down in the nineties, and it is anyone’s guess what it will do in the coming decade). It also separates items in a list (e.g., The steel, coal, chemical, and gas industries all face competition from the Far East) and is used in non-defining relative clauses (e.g., The response, which came rather late, surprised everyone). In defining relative clauses, no commas are necessary (e.g., The item which you ordered is no longer in production). Generally, commas are not placed before conjunctions like or, but, or then (e.g., The presentation was quite long but everyone listened with great concentration). However, they are used after subclauses at the beginning of sentences (e.g., Although interest rates have been falling, there is no sign of recovery in the economy).