Exclamation marks

Warning! Do not overuse these punctuation marks!

The exclamation mark is used to indicate an excited, angry or other strongly emotional tone.

Advertisers love them!!!

You may also be tempted to use them in formal writing. Let me give you a word of warning. Don't!

Or perhaps you are submitting something for publication. In an attempt to demonstrate your knowledge of how all the different punctuation marks are used, you may feel tempted to slip in an exclamation point or two.

Beware!!! That would be a mistake!

So who uses exclamation marks? Texting teens, like, duh!!!

And politicians, of course!

These punctuation shouts are used by anyone who wants to punch up the emotional tone of a piece without bothering to work with more complex rhetorical tools like word choice and sentence structure. This is done in the vain hope of getting the reader to pay more attention.

I'll let you in a secret. It doesn't work!!!

Want more information? Try the English Club.

Enough said.