Just another suggestion. sometimes visual mode is overwhelming, or you don't want to be in it while your search for the end of the selection without being sure

Just another suggestion. sometimes visual mode is overwhelming, or you don't want to be in it while your search for the end of the selection without being sure where it is. Another thing is if you start with line visual mode (V), and then you end up not wanting line selection the markers help you out -- it's a finer-grained set of commands that's a bit more flexible and a bit less efficient.