An Analysis of Punctuation Marks’ Usage: The Case of Written Text of Musi Comprehensive Students in Tenth Grade

his study analyses 49 English students’ use of punctuation marks in Musi Comprehensive, South Africa. The data is collected from fourth term, paper three exam scripts written by the students of Musi Comprehensive. In paper three, students are expected to write an essay, which is compulsory, and choose one from the following: letter (formal or informal), obituary, directions or diary. This study only focuses on their essay writing. The researcher only picked the scripts that are under 60%. The study uses qualitative method to analyse the data. The result of the research shows that 71% of the students made an error on punctuating capital letters, 43% of the students made an error on full stops, 41% made an error on apostrophe, 29% on Commas and 4% made an error on question mark. The result of the study also found that there are three types of punctuation errors made by the students of Musi Comprehensive, namely: Misuse, Omission and addition. There are punctuation marks that are misused 235 times, there are punctuation marks that omitted 92 times and there are punctuation marks that are unnecessary added 47 times. This study recommend that teachers focus more on punctuating sentences especially on capital letter. This calls for immediate action.