Day 2:
As all good writing must, we will begin with grammar and punctuation. And for those of you who are just finding out, Lewis Thomas is always a great place to begin discussing grammar because he gets it and because he has a sense of humor about it.
But first, why is grammar important?

Grammar is how the world knows whether or not you know anything. Many of us can write, but some of us actually know what we are doing when we write. Writing grammatically suggests that we have put time and effort into the thing we are writing and that people should accordingly take us seriously. Also, you will inevitably be asked to write something for someone who can hold a salary over your head, or a grade, or a parking ticket, or general interest (as in the case of the weblogs), and you are going to want to seem intelligent to hold your own in the situation. Trust me; it is in your best interest to take stake in your ability to write grammatically.

"Notes on Punctuation" and some grammar stuff:
Are there any precise rules about punctuation?
What's the difference between a semi-colon, colon, and period, for Lewis?
Did anyone find any grammatical errors in Lewis' piece?
Let's add commas to the following sentence:
If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows into all sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn't realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashed up squirming in commas.

Commas:
Put a comma after an introductory clause:
If you cook Elmer will do the dishes.
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached our campsite.

Only put a comma after a short introductory clause if it makes the sentence less confusing. Always put a comma after an introductory clause that is more the three or four words.

Put a comma after a coordinating conjunction separating two independent clauses: FANBOYS
FOR
AND
NOR
BUT
OR
YET
SO

Marie Curie discovered radium and later applied her work on radioactivity to medicine.

AN IMPORTANT EXCEPTION:
Jake still doesn't realize that his illness is serious and that he will have to alter his diet to improve his chances of survival.

Semicolons:
The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added; it reminds you sometimes of the Greek usage.

Unless you brush your teeth within ten of fifteen minutes after eating; brushing
does almost no good.

Add commas and semicolons to the following sentence:

If an animal does something we call it instinct if we do the same thing we call it intelligence.

What is Lewis' beef with colons?
What does Lewis say about exclamation points?
When is it ok to use quotation marks? ellipses?
Finally, we come to the dash-two dashes, actually, that are not separated from their surrounding words by spaces. Why do I like the dash so much?