I Exclaim.

As I was emailing with Laura the other day, she pointed out how much she actually used the exclamation point. "Holy exclamation marks," she said as she ended her email about the weekend to me. "Sorry, I get a little too excited sometimes.."

I'm a compulsive exclamation point user, myself. So when she said that to me I laughed because I could really understand what she meant. It's extremely difficult to convey tone online and in emails so your choice of punctuation is crucial. I really feel the exclamation point conveys emotion very well and I'm generally a pretty excited and friendly person. However, as I read over professional emails, I usually find myself deleting exclamation points because I don't want to appear overly excited, especially to people I don't really know. And, being the grammarian I am, I don't want to misuse and abuse my punctuation!

So of course, I must consult my AP Stylebook, aka the Journalist's bible. It reads:

"AVOID OVERUSE: Use a comma after mild interjections. End mildly exclamatory sentences with a period."

But how can you be mildly excited about something?! You're either excited or you're not. You may very well be ecstatic and when that happens I usually throw in an extra mark or two, because why not? I guess that's one of the times that I deviate from the rules. I can have poetic license, you know. I'm a writer!! So, Laura, don't worry about overusing exclamation points - I do it all the time!

Stay tuned for my overuse of haha, LOL, and the ellipsis in emails and on IM… =) (I also enjoy smilies)