Aika wrote:

I had a question about grammar/punctuation when I read the following
fanfic:

#1  "We were only after Ranma this time, but since you came along as
well, we can train you too!"  Rumbled the man to the little black
piglet.

#2  "I thought the duel didn't start until noon?  It is barely
eleven!"  Snarled Shoki.

#3  "You are not Ranma!  Who are you!"  He roared.

In each case, the dialogue started with a quotation and ended with an
exclamation mark (!) followed by a reference to the speaker.

Are those three samples properly punctuated?

Absolutely not.

"You are not Ranma! Who are you!" he roared.

You are correct.  This is also true for question marks.

I used to post periodically on this subject but I've since decided
that it's a waste of breath.  It's only moderately annoying anyway;
spelling is much more important.

I guess the bottom line, though, is that if you want to have your
stuff read (and admired) by the maximum number of people,
you need to make it accessible.  And punctuation and spelling
errors hinder accessability, In My Humble Opinion.


<begin rant mode>

I, for one, have abandoned more than one fanfic because it
was unbearably hard to read.  Simple but common errors:

    * Punctuation errors;
    * Spelling mistakes;
    * Formatting issues... such as not breaking paragraphs
      or not indicating paragraph breaks using either an indent
      or empty line; and
    * Word use errors:  "your" instead of "you're"; "it's" instead
      of "its", "broach" instead of "brooch", etc, etc, etc.

Another common thing but less annoying is not word-wrapping
posts.

<end rant mode>

Whew.  Why don't I feel better after getting that lot off my chest?

--
David Eddy - Senior Consultant, Progress Software Melbourne
dje@progress.com

Screening Coordinator and Subbing Bunny, Melbourne Anime Society
My fanfics are archived at http://nabiki.newberry.edu/DEddy