As an academic writer, you don’t often use an exclamation point. In fact, you most likely cannot remember the last time you let one slip into your writing. Any teacher would frown when they see emotionally charged words or symbols in a research paper or thesis. We can also hardly imagine this punctuation mark appearing in an equation or business writing task. It may seem like exclamation points are incompatible with academic texts, and that you should forget about it when working on school or college papers.
However, with ever-changing standards, you may wonder if and when it may be appropriate to put an exclamation point in a paper. And we can assure you there are a few cases that allow or even require ending a sentence with this punctuation mark. As the definition of an academic assignment has expanded, creative writing has become a part of it. But this is only one of the cases where you can appropriately use an exclamation point, and you will find more of them in this article. For starters though, we should once again define which of your sentences you can never end with an exclamation, and why.
Don’t use exclamation points in any kind of formal writing
Business, law, mathematics, finance, and other disciplines give you no opportunity to use an exclamation. Whether you are writing a brief review or a comprehensive research paper, every formal text requires a neutral tone of voice and punctuation. An exclamation point is a convenient method of conveying your emotions in writing, particularly in fiction. But academic texts, in their turn, mostly require us to stay impartial. That means you should keep your vocabulary formal and end sentences with a full stop.
It probably won’t be hard for you to avoid putting an exclamation point into a formal academic paper, because you won’t feel they are needed there. Just as you fill in documents using serious vocabulary, writing dissertations and term papers hardly requires emotions. Moreover, academic writing in general has always been highly formal, which is why we have this rule about not using exclamation points (a rule that’s actually not hard for any writer to follow).
Compose your scholarly essays without exclamations
An essay is a rather new genre in academic writing. Originally it belonged to fiction, but now we complete all sorts of essays for school and college. The rule for exclamation points is pretty much the same here—if you are analyzing scholarly articles or doing a review of academic literature, you should keep it formal. Leave exclamation points for the opinion essays, or any other creative tasks. Though you may sometimes be tempted to highlight important sentences with an exclamation, remember that your review has to remain impartial and neutral.
If you hesitate about ending a sentence with an exclamation point, think about whether this type of essay requires your personal opinion. If the teacher isn’t expecting to hear your point of view, focus on facts and cut out exclamation points. Some scholarly essay topics may touch upon sensitive issues like religion or gender, but even then, you may still need to save your emotions for an opinion essay, and support your point with facts instead.
Avoid exclamation points when transforming a quote into indirect speech
We cannot omit an exclamation point if it appears as a part of a quote. But we do drop the exclamation when converting that same citation into indirect speech. For instance, you can render the sentence “I cannot believe he did that to me!” gasped Claire” as “Clair was shocked by his actions” or a similar construction, without an exclamation point. The verb acts as a marker of emotions here, so you can just tell your reader what Claire felt without using emotionally-colored punctuation.
Omitting an exclamation point while making speech indirect makes a great deal of sense. While direct speech conveys the emotions of the speaker, indirect speech is in your own words. As the emotion involved is not your own, you can easily show it using a suitable, affective verb (gasped, screamed, yelled, etc). As a writer, you don’t always need to personally react to what’s being said or done in the text.
Those are the three basic rules about not using exclamation points in school papers. And now, check out the cases that allow this controversial punctuation mark to appear in academic writing. Keep in mind that it happens mostly in creative assignments, or when the style of writing is semi-formal.
Do use exclamation point as a part of a quote
As we’ve already stated, it’s impossible to drop an exclamation point that’s been put in a quote. Let’s say you are writing an essay on English literature and quoting Shakespeare. In this case, you can fully justify having placed plenty of exclamation points with quotes like “A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” or “Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?” It doesn’t actually matter much what you are quoting—if the source text has an exclamation point, you have to put it as it is into your paper, even if the quote appears in a formal piece of writing.
The use of emotionally-colored punctuation in academic writing is always justified if it’s not your words that it’s accentuating. In the case of quotations, you don’t express any emotion of your own—you just accurately repeat what’s been stated in the original text, as you should.
Mind punctuation when using an exclamation point in quotes
Speaking of instances when an exclamation point goes with a citation, it’s also necessary to pay attention to citation marks. The rule is simple—if you are quoting an exclamatory sentence, you should enclose it in the citation marks so that the exclamation point goes within the quote. Just like in the example “Look what I’ve found!”, make sure you leave the punctuation unchanged before you close the quotation mark.
The rule of keeping an exclamation point within also applies when you enclose an exclamatory sentence using parentheses. “I was shocked with your decision (how could you do that to me!)” is a good example of how an exclamation is widely-used together with parentheses. This is not the case with quotes, but you should just keep it in mind when writing a creative paper.
Convey your emotions in creative writing
An opinion essay is the right place to tell the academic world what you think and feel about a given topic. It’s okay to put an exclamation point here if you feel like it, only remember not to overuse it. The same applies to any kind of creative papers you have to write for school and college. In most cases, creative essays don’t require any formal cliches or academic vocabulary: quite the contrary. You are supposed to share your opinion in your own words, and your teacher will most likely appreciate it if your writing turns informal and conversational.
With all creative essays and similar tasks, the definition of academic writing has considerably expanded, and so have the rules of tone and style. Schools encourage students to be honest and straightforward in their writing. This way, teachers can better check their students’ critical thinking skills and detect possible plagiarism in papers.
Let exclamation points occasionally slip into social sciences and the humanities
While you are not supposed to use exclamation points when writing about the sciences, you can make an exception for the cases when it’s logically suitable. For example, if you are providing instructions for chemical experiments, you may use labels like “Warning!” or “Caution!” Even in some legal texts, you may need a heading such as “Important!” Keep in mind that using an exclamation point also depends on the context. You can easily highlight crucial sections of your academic writing with similar headings when the situation calls for it—just use your common sense and you will never be wrong.
Determine your teacher’s attitude towards exclamation points
If you are working on a complex or important paper, it’s worth inquiring about any possible stylistic restrictions for the task. Perhaps your teacher has a style guide ready for such cases—then you should align your writing with the instructions given when working on this particular paper. It also happens that teachers have their preferences on how assignments should be written. Perhaps you will need to cut any exclamatory sentences if your teacher is against them, and it probably won’t be a problem for you to do so. The point here is to take into account any additional recommendations or restrictions imposed directly by your school.
Using exclamation points is easy. As an academic writer, however, you are likely not eager to put it in a creative paper more than once or twice. It’s much more common for fiction writing, where an exclamation point helps to convey emotions. But even there, no one will encourage you to use it much. “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke,” said F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not overusing an exclamation point is perhaps the most important thing about it, which is something you should remember as a writer.
