Have you ever spoken so much it was hard to breathe?

Try to say this sentence without stopping or taking a breath:

I AM SAM I AM SAM SAM I AM THAT SAM-I-AM THAT SAM-I-AM I DO NOT LIKE THAT SAM-I-AM WOULD YOU LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM I DO NOT LIKE THEM SAM-I-AM I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM WOULD YOU LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM I DO NOT LIKE THEM SAM-I-AM

This text from Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss was really hard to read, right? That’s because it’s missing two things: punctuation, and line spaces.

Have you heard of the Ancient Romans or Greeks? They were probably some of the first people to create democracy. They loved to write really long speeches and then perform them in front of thousands of people. They realised that to make people understand exactly what they wanted to say, they needed to pause and stop in just the correct places. So they created punctuation – marks to tell the speaker when to stop.

In your writing, you need to use punctuation marks and spaces in exactly the same way. The examiner, or your teacher, expects to see commas and full stops in your writing. It tells them how your ideas are organised, and where they should stop to breathe. If you don’t have them, your writing very quickly becomes impossible to understand.

Try to read the start of Green Eggs and Ham again, with the original punctuation and spaces:

I AM SAM. I AM SAM. SAM I AM.

THAT SAM-I-AM! THAT SAM-I-AM! I DO NOT LIKE THAT SAM-I-AM!

DO WOULD YOU LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM,SAM-I-AM.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE?

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.