Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my channel, Sparkle
English, where I teach you how to improve your level of
English. My name is Jennifer, and I will be your teacher
today. So in today's lesson, we are going to correct the
punctuation of this short creepy story. I'm going to
read you three short pages, and you have to correct any
punctuation or capitalization errors. So pay attention to
periods commas, quotation marks, and apostrophes. I will
read each page, and at the end of each page, we will correct
the errors together. Let's get started. The Unsettling
Encounter. If I could go back in time, I'd convince my
parents not to move to Whistling Hollow. That was the
name of the town we moved to last year, and it sure lived
up to its name. It was an eerie, creepy town. The people
would always smile and say hello, but they just had a
strange way about them. You just felt like something
wasn't right. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Okay, so now let's correct the punctuation. First, we need to
add a comma after time because this is an introductory
clause. If I could go back in time, comma, I'd convinced my
parents not to move to Whistling Hollow. The next
comma we need to add is after year. That was the name of the
town we moved to last year. We have to add a comma here
before the coordinating conjunction. And because it
sure lived up to its name is an independent clause. And
here this apostrophe with it is incorrect. There should be
no apostrophe because we are looking for the possessive
form of it: its. We're not saying it sure lived up to it
is name. We want to use the possessive without an
apostrophe. And now we need to add a comma between eerie and
creepy because these are coordinate adjectives. So when
two adjectives are of the same type describing the same noun,
we have to use a comma between them. The next comma we need
to add is after hello. The people would always smile and
say hello, comma, but they just had a strange way about
them. Again, we need a comma before this coordinating
conjunction because it is followed by an independent
clause. And finally, this comma is unnecessary. We do
not use a comma here. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Okay, let's go on to page two. "Start unpacking the boxes in
your bedroom," my mom said. "Your father and I are going
to buy some groceries. We'll be back in an hour." I started
unpacking my belongings and organizing my bedroom on the
second floor. All of a sudden, I heard a knock on the back
door. I ran downstairs and opened the door, but no one
was there. As soon as I went back upstairs, I heard
knocking again. So first we need a comma here after
bedroom before the quotation marks. With direct speech, we
end it with a comma instead of a period. If it's followed by
my mom said or he said, for example, before the closing
quotation marks. Now here, your father and I are going to
buy some groceries. This is incorrect. This should be your
because we are not saying you are. We're using the
possessive form. Your father. And finally we are missing
closing quotation marks after the period here. We have to
close this quotation. Now we have an unnecessary comma
here. This comma is incorrect. I started unpacking my
belongings and organizing my bedroom on the second floor.
Organizing my bedroom on the second floor is not an
independent clause. So we do not use a comma here. Now we
need a comma after sudden. All of a sudden, comma, I heard a
knock on the back door. And here we are also missing a
comma. I ran downstairs and opened the door, comma, but no
one was there. We need a comma before this coordinating
conjunction because "no one was there" is an independent
clause. And finally, we need one more comma in the last
sentence. As soon as I went back upstairs, comma, I heard
knocking again. This is an introductory clause, so we
also need a comma. Now let's go to the final page. By this
point, I was starting to feel a little freaked out. I
decided not to go downstairs to answer the door. I slowly
peered out the window to see if I could see anyone outside.
A man in a hooded sweatshirt was standing right in the
middle of the lawn. He was wide-eyed and staring directly
at me. I screamed. Fortunately, my parents
arrived home and came in the front door. The man must have
heard them making noise because he scurried away after
that. Luckily, I never saw that man again. Now the first
paragraph here is correct. There are no punctuation
errors. There are some errors in the second paragraph. First
of all, man should not be capitalized. It should be a
lowercase m. A man, that is not a proper noun, so we do
not capitalize it. Now here, I don't know if you noticed, but
this full stop should be right here. There's a space that
there shouldn't be. And here wide-eyed, we should have a
hyphen, he was wide-eyed and staring directly at me. I
screamed. This comma is incorrect. Because this is a
comma splice. We have to either make this into a
semicolon or a full stop. Fortunately, comma, my parents
arrived home and came in the front door and the rest of the
story is correct. Okay, so I want you to let me know in the
comments section, how many pages you got correct out of
three, or how many errors you made, and what you found to be
the most difficult. Thank you guys for watching. Make sure
to check out my other videos in this series on how to
correct punctuation in short stories. You can follow
Sparkle English on Facebook or Instagram for more quick
lessons. And I will see you in my next lesson.