Exclamation Marks: The Forbidden Fruit of Punctuation?

Exclamation Marks: The Forbidden Fruit of Punctuation?

For most of my academic life, I’ve been told to avoid using exclamation marks in academic and formal writing. I’ve even heard some English sticklers say that using the otherwise innocent-looking bit of punctuation is a sign of a poor writer—or that its use indicates that you the linguistic equivalent of an attention wh--… uhm, of Snooki from The Jersey Shore. Yes. Good analogy.

The gist of my experience is that there are strong opinions about exclamation marks out there in the world of English, and most of them are negative and prohibitive. I’ve always wondered, though—why? When I read exclamation marks in most cases, I read the sentence differently and with more energy, emphasis, and even enthusiasm than without. That doesn’t sound bad to me, even remembering many cases where the mark has been overused to the point of losing some of its powers. Can’t any punctuation be put to ill use? How is the exclamation different in a way that merits the disdain—assuming there is indeed widespread disdain?

I wonder if anti-exclamation guidelines started as a convention long ago, and stuck around just as a consequence of tradition and not wanting to break it. Perhaps it’s a perfectly good mark with many uses—who knows? I’d like to find out.

Specifically, I’d like to learn what people think and feel when they read different types and purposes of sentences with exclamation marks as opposed to with plain periods. What adjectives would they use describe their interpretations of the sentences?

“Everyone is welcome, so please join us.”
“Everyone is welcome, so please join us!” -

How are these two perceived? Is one “better” for a given situation—does one more match a situational intent like inviting people to a conference? Is the first sober, the second peppy? This is what I’d like to find out.

WORKING RESEARCH QUESTION: How do people describe the same sentence with and without exclamation marks?

I am assuming I will have to refine this question as I move on in my research.