When I began my career as a copywriter the second time around, I was bombarded with a mantra that-had I listened to it-would have made me do an about-face and run the other direction. I was in a brave, new world, and I was as excited as I could possibly be, charging out of the starting gate with all the passion, enthusiasm, and bumbling questions of the "wannabe."

But why was I fare for the lion's den? You might be surprised at the answer. I have a Master's Degree in English, and I had taken a 10-year break from copywriting to go to graduate school, to strengthen my writing skills, and to teach college for awhile. I was convinced that this would immediately give me a bit of credibility as I ventured back into the career I had fallen in love with so many years ago.

Boy, was I naive.

In fact, most of the copywriting ads and articles I read screamed a message loud and clear: A writing degree will work against you! Forget what your English teacher told you! Don't try to be "too perfect" in your copy!

Since then, I've been able to squint through the smoke and mirrors and see something quite clearly. Having a writing degree won't work against you. NOT having one won't necessarily work against you, either. Or will it?

In order to write clearly and effectively, you have to relate to your target audience, but what exactly does that mean? Can you get by with placing a coordinating conjunction at the beginning of a sentence? Do you avoid comma splices like the plague? Do you have to diagram sentences to become a linguistics virtuoso?

Aren't rules meant to be broken?

As marketers, we are experts in the dance of persuasion. We have to seduce the audience we're selling to. That means we're story tellers in print, sales people at heart, and we must master the strategy of persuasion to make the sale. Does this mean you have to memorize all the rules? Absolutely not. But you really should take the time to learn a few basic conventions. Then break them for effect. I do. In fact, I've broken rules in every paragraph you've read so far.

I've had the good fortune of working for some high-profile clients. These are top marketers who sell products worldwide. They hire me BECAUSE I understand language. Their target audience expects excellence. And that's what I give them. However, if you're selling seduction products to your target audience, I doubt they'll get their dander up over a double preposition or a dangling modifier. In fact, you'll probably get them out of the mood if you get too hung up on the mechanics instead of the message.

I'm surprised that I don't see more emphasis on punctuation these days. Instead, I see the opposite. Mediocrity is the mantra of the day for some writers, and I've even heard marketers make statements that imply that everyday language and the use of effective punctuation don't go hand-in-hand. This couldn't be further from the truth. Our spoken language is full of commas, semicolons, parentheses, hyphens, dashes, and exclamation points. You just can't SEE them, but you do HEAR them.

One key to making a connection to your customer is to write in everyday language. We all know that. But what makes language so interesting? It's the sound of our voices. It's the way we use words. Most importantly, there's a rhythm to it, an ebb and a flow to our rhetoric. We exude enthusiasm and passion.... We pause for effect. . . . WE SHOUT TO GET ATTENTION! We even lower our voices to make people lean forward and focus on what we have to say.

Why should copywriting be any different?

The good news is that you don't need a degree to master the language. What you do need is a basic understanding of a few rules, respect for the power of punctuation, and enough creativity and know-how to break the rules effectively.

When I mentor aspiring writers, I tell them that the most compelling writing does not deliberately follow the rules or reject them; it uses what works best for the target audience. Use punctuation to orchestrate the cadence. Use it to make your subheads grab the reader's attention. Use it to pack a punch in your call-to-action, but don't scream your way to the sale. One of the most effective ways to punctuate is not with an exclamation point. It's with a comma.

I always get a kick out of this exercise. Try your hand at punctuating this sentence:

A woman without her man is nothing

While there are several ways you can do this, the meaning of the sentence changes completely, depending on how you approach it:

A woman, without her, man is nothing.

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

Get it?

Now, look at the difference in the two sentences below. Pay close attention to what a comma can do:

The nervous hiker edged along the side of the cliff.
[y-a-w-n]

Heart racing, knees shaking, the hiker edged along the side of the cliff.

See how the comma works like a zoom lens to the details? It causes the reader to pause and pay attention. It transforms a "telling" sentence into one that shows action. Good description is a head-on crash of nouns and verbs, not a string of useless adjectives. Remember that tip the next time you infuse a story into your sales letter. Don't go overboard with this technique, though. Just add a dash of colliding nouns and verbs when you want to shake up things a bit.

Instead of grumbling your way through commas, hyphens, and semicolons, get familiar with the power of punctuation. Pay attention to how people talk. Study the way they emphasize their words. Listen for pauses. From this day forward, think of punctuation as a telescopic lens that draws the reader's eye down the slippery slide, brings clear focus to the benefits, and makes your call-to-action so compelling the customer won't think of shopping anywhere else. If you can manage a few well-placed commas and ellipses with a compelling offer, you'll see your ROI soar.