Try this short exercise after you have reviewed the article End Punctuation: Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points.

The following paragraph has been adapted from an essay by British journalist Richard Boston. Throughout the paragraph, you'll find a number of empty paired brackets: [ ]. Replace each set of brackets with the appropriate end mark of punctuation: a period, question mark, or exclamation point.

Then capitalize the first letter of the word that starts each new sentence.

When you're done, compare your version of the paragraph with Boston's original on page two.

Down With Skool!

I am not against all schools[ ] I am very much in favor of schools that consist of groups of porpoises or similar aquatic animals that swim together[ ] I only wish that I had been to one[ ] no, I'm thinking more of school in the dictionary sense as an institution or building at which children and young people receive education[ ] that dictionary definition tells the story[ ] what a school of porpoises do is play[ ] skool is for work[ ] it is an institution[ ] why put children in an institution[ ] the real reason is that it gets the brats out from under parents' feet[ ] the purported reason is that this is the best way to get useful information into the skulls of the little darlings[ ] how absurd[ ] children are more intelligent than adults and wiser[ ] instead of instilling into them the accepted knowledge and wisdom of the past, what we ought to be doing is learning from them[ ] that would be my idea of a good school: one run by children--or porpoises[ ]
(Adapted from "Down With Skool!" by Richard Boston.

Guardian Weekly, April 22, 1990)

You'll find Richard Boston's original sentences on page two.

For additional practice, go to Punctuation Practice: Using End Marks of Punctuation II.