Hi, I’m Tom. Welcome to this essay-writing and punctuation training module. This module is intended to provide you with a practical step-by-step instruction on how to write an essay and, at the same time, use the comma and some other punctuation marks that are important for essay-writing.

My approach is to follow along the steps I take when writing a standard examination essay. With each step, I will explain my decision why I would put a punctuation mark.

I grew up in Germany, and so I sometimes have to solve problems arising from the fact that some German rules are contrary to English punctuation rules.

There exists a training module in eZfbK called “Using Punctuation Marks Correctly”. It describes the comma rules and all other punctuation marks from a grammatical perspective. You can make use of it for further practice, and so I will refer to it where possible.

The concept of this module, however, is to approach the problem from the writer's perspective. On the one hand, I will try to model the steps of the writing process to be taken with an exam essay and, on the other hand, I will simultaneously follow through the decision-making process of setting a comma and some further punctuation marks that are important for exam essays.

For my sample essay I have chosen the question of whether we should kill animals for food. Every step in the composition will begin with one of my comments. This comment will be followed by an example illustrating what I mean. In this example you will find one punctuation question we will then deal with. And if the problem is complex enough, it will be followed by an exercise for you to practise. The different parts are symbolized as follows:

When you see me, I will explain something or make a comment.

When you see this notebook, I will give you an example of essay -writing or punctuation.

When you see this symbol, you can do an exercise and get feedback.

In general, I have organised the module in such a way as to accommodate two approaches to it: you can work through it from the beginning to the end in about 3 hours or just dip in at different topics that are of interest to you. There will be no final test. It is all about learning and reflection. Have fun.