Common Punctuation Errors Made by Secondary Schools Students in English: A Case Study at Secondary Schools, Nyala Locality.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the common punctuation errors made by students of secondary schools in writing. The researcher suggested that there are various errors made by students of secondary schools. Therefore, a sample of 80 students from secondary schools was given two tests (pre-test and post test) as tools for collecting data. The researcher used descriptive analytical method. Test and retest were used for reliability measurement. The results revealed that the common errors among the students are the use of comma in the place of the full stop, the incorrect uses of the comma, and the wrong uses of the quotation marks. Exclamation mark, comma and quotation marks are more difficult among the entire marks, besides the misuse of some punctuation marks. Moreover, the results revealed that there were significant differences in the number of punctuation errors among secondary students due to the insufficient of exercises (unpunctuated sentences/texts), insufficient explanation to all types of punctuation marks, their uses and functions through examples for illustration, in addition to lack of practice.