Perfect Punctuation is Not Necessary

August 2022 — Tip of the Month

As someone who cares about grammatical accuracy, it took me a while to realize perfect punctuation is not always necessary. While having good grammar is essential in resumes and professional emails, it doesn't matter in casual messages and texts. When texting your friends or posting a reply on social media, it may even be better not to include punctuation.

When sending a quick text like, "Sounds good," adding a period might make you sound upset or old. Neither is great. When texting, the period is implied, so you don't need to add it. If your text has a bunch of sentences, you can separate them with periods, but guess what — you still don't need one at the end of the text.

The same holds true on social media. You don't need to punctuate your post when commenting on Facebook or Instagram. Sure, you can add commas to break up long sentences, an exclamation point for emphasis (usually one will suffice!), or a question mark for clarity, but they aren't always necessary. I remember seeing someone's comment "Why am I reading this" a few years ago, and it was somehow funnier without the question mark.

When it comes to grammatical accuracy, context matters. So keep those articles, papers, and emails properly punctuated. But when texting or posting comments... whatevs

- Per Christensson