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Q&A It is unprofessional to use double exclamation marks and CAPS in a product or service?

That depends on how you want to present yourself to your audience. If you want to appeal to the 4chan crowd or put yourself on a par with, say, the local used-car dealer, by all means stuff your pr...

posted 13y ago by Robusto‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T01:39:50Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3004
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Robusto‭ · 2019-12-08T01:39:50Z (almost 5 years ago)
That depends on how you want to present yourself to your audience. If you want to appeal to the 4chan crowd or put yourself on a par with, say, the local used-car dealer, by all means stuff your prose with bundles of exclamation marks.

But you have to ask yourself if exclamation marks (especially multiples) are really doing anything to help you. For every 4chan devotee who thinks nothing of the excess, there are plenty who will be put off by this forced display of artificial enthusiasm.

The fact is, exclamation marks are seldom needed, especially in ordinary, informational prose.

I once had a junior copywriter working for me who had a proclivity for using slammers (slang for "exclamation points" or "exclamation marks") in her writing. I sat down with her one day and gave her a five-dollar bill. "New rule," I said. "Every time you use a slammer you owe me a buck. The first five are on me." She pinned the bill to her bulletin board. When she and her husband moved across the country several years later, she returned it to me unspent. Her writing, I might add, was much improved, and she thanked me for the lesson. Her portfolio was good enough by that time to get her a senior copywriter position at a large agency in her new city.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2011-06-04T12:20:33Z (over 13 years ago)
Original score: 9