Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

40%
+0 −1
Q&A Proofreading a novel: when should exclamation marks be used? [closed]

I'm proofreading a novel - the brief has instructed that I do not make any stylistic changes, and correct only the obvious errors that impede sense/clarity. There are several places where I feel a...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by user753711‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T13:05:51Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48367
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar user753711‭ · 2019-12-08T13:05:51Z (almost 5 years ago)
I'm proofreading a novel - the brief has instructed that I do not make any stylistic changes, and correct only the obvious errors that impede sense/clarity.

There are several places where I feel an exclamation mark is missing:

a) "Good God, I hope not," responded Sue.

b) Suddenly, one of the first violinists nudged her companion, and hissed: "Oh good grief, look over there."

My feeling is that these are classic examples of exclamatory sentences (Good God! Good grief!) and so it is a basic error to miss the exclamation mark. However, I don't want to interfere with the writer's style if they intend a more laconic tone of voice. I don't think this is the case in (b) at least, due to the use of the word 'hissed', but perhaps I should leave the first example alone, as I don't know for sure what tone of voice isn't intended?

Any advice from experienced proofreaders would be much appreciated - should I concern myself with punctuation to this extent, or leave it alone if the sentence can be understood clearly?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-10-04T09:57:12Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 1