What does a mark do to the reader?

Punctuation for effect is choosing a mark for what it does to the reader, once the rule is met. A full stop says stop, a comma says pause briefly, a colon says here it comes, a dash says jump, brackets say lower your voice, and an ellipsis says let it hang. Run the Effect Test - name it, try two, read aloud, keep one - then edit in stages, from the whole piece down to the full stops. Covers full stops and exclamation marks, question marks and rhetorical questions, commas for a pause, the colon, the semicolon, the dash, brackets, the ellipsis, punctuation in dialogue, fragments, paragraph breaks, lists, italics and bold, cut, move and add, feedback, punctuation in messages, Indian English habits, exam editing tasks and close reading, for ages 5 to 19.