Tasnif Style Guide — Page 57
Chapter 6 PUNCTUATION General Information As a translator, writer, or editor, the primary objective is to convey the words or translated words with clarity, eloquence, and reada- bility for the readership. Correct punctuation is vital to this end. Something as trivial as a misplaced comma can drastically alter the meaning of a sentence. Commas & Full Stops It is common in some foreign languages (e. g. Urdu, Arabic, Persian, etc. ) for sentences to run much longer than our contem- porary English standards. In fact, it is not unusual to see instances in those foreign languages where a single sentence consumes up to half a page. Those languages are able to cope fairly well without the use of extensive punctuation, while this is not the case with English. The general rule taught to most English writers is that short, crisp, and clear sentences are to be preferred over long, run-on sentences. For this reason, it is often necessary to break longer Urdu sentences into shorter English sentences so that they are