GLOW: Grammar Lessons On the Web

For the exclusive use of employees of the U.S. Department of State--by Tillyer Associates

Practice #2
Using Commas in Writing

This is the story of the Titanic. You have to add commas, periods and capital letters to be able to understand it fully. If you need help with the capital letters, look at the Glow Capitalization lesson.

Discovering the R.M.S.Titanic

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robert ballard is a man with a mission  a former us naval officer ballard has been exploring the sea for more than 30 years  in 1984 he joined a french/us expedition to use robot boats to discover and photograph the titanic that expedition was a failure but dr ballard was not deterred  the next year  he went back to the scene with the alvin a three-person submarine and jason  a remote control robot  he discovered the titanic lying on the ocean floor where it had come to rest 73 years earlier  it was in a field of debris under 3,800 meters or 12,000 feet of water

he used jason to explore the titanic while he watched in the alvin the water is so cold and the pressure so great that no diver could survive outside of a vessel  the scene was an eerie one  the decks of the ship  once fine mahogany  had been eaten away by sea borers  while the giant funnels smokestacks had disappeared a single chandelier still hung in the dining room  with jason as his eyes  ballard could see the massive main staircase the purser's safe and even the cutlery and glassware in the dining room  while ballard tried unsuccessfully to open the safe  he removed nothing from the scene  he even left a placque commemorating the 1523 passengers who had lost their lives that night 73 years ago

the following year however a controversial french salvage expedition retrieved dishes  jewels currency and other items from the scene  these were exhibited in paris in september 1987  there have been questions about whether artifacts should be removed from the scene  however the investigation continues

ballard's research discovered that the reason the titanic was sunk by the collision with the iceberg was the shape of the damage  rather than one puncture in one spot  damage which would have allowed water into one flotation chamber  the actual collision caused a long narrow scrape along the hull of the ship allowing water into six of the 16 flotation chambers  ballard speculates that if captain smith had not actually tried to turn the ship away from the iceberg and instead hit it head on the damage would have been grave but the ship might have stayed afloat by turning the ship  ballard says the ship scraped along the iceberg for 35 meters or 110 feet  and compounded the damage  in fact  later analysis of the steel used to build the titanic confirms that the hull was overly brittle and probably broke apart at the seams in the bitter cold north atlantic seas

should we raise the titanic to make it a museum  no the brittle steel and poor rivets would not stand the trauma of being raised  should we leave it there and send tourist vessels to visit it  perhaps, but the same weaknesses that made the ship fall apart are allowing it to deteriorate quickly in its deep  dark grave  four movies have been made about the story of the titanic and that is probably its best legacy

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