Summary of Punctuation Marks
Period .
Indicates the end of a complete sentence
or follows abbreviations.
Mr. Ed is a horse.
Exclamation Point !
Indicates a command, an expression
of strong emotion, or an emphatic phrase or sentence.
What a horse!
Question Mark ?
Indicates the end of a direct question.
Is he really a horse?
Comma ,
Indicates separation of sentence elements
for purposes of clarity. Consult a handbook for details of comma rules.
Yes, he is, and he can talk, too.
Semi-Colon ;
Indicates separation of independent
clauses when no conjunction is present. Indicates a special relationship (one
that cannot be adequately expressed by a period) between the two clauses.
He’s sure to give you an answer; talk to
Mr. Ed.
Colon :
Introduces words, phrases or clauses that
explain, amplify, exemplify or summarize the adjacent independent clause.
He eats mostly grains: oats, corn, and barley.
NOT The things he likes best are: oats, corn and barley. (a colon should not
be used unless the words either before or after the colon make an independent
clause)
Apostrophe ’
Indicates the possessive case
of nouns and the omission of letters or numbers in a contraction. See the apostrophe
handout for more details.
In the '60s era TV series, he's always getting
Wilbur's goat.
Parentheses ( )
Enclose material that is incidental
to a sentence and that is not grammatically part of the sentence.
Mr. Ed's jokes (dubbed, of course) were very bad.
Brackets [ ]
Enclose words or passages in quoted
material to indicate the insertion of words written by someone other than the
original writer, and to enclose material already within parentheses.
Wilbur said, "I'm always putting my foot in his [Mr. Ed's] mouth."
Quotation Marks “ ”
Enclose direct
quotations, whether of speech or of writing, and enclose words or phrases used
in a special way, i.e., ironically or when referring to a word as a word.
Mr. Ed was “famous” for saying, “Hello, I’m Mr. Ed.”
Dash --
Indicates a sudden or abrupt change in
continuity, sometimes in the form of an interruption. A dash consists of two
hyphens on many keyboards.
Wilbur was famous for--what was it?--oh, yes, nothing.
Ellipses . . .
Indicate the omission of words or
sentences in quoted material.
“No one can talk to a horse . . . unless the horse is . . . Mr. Ed.”
Hyphen -
Joins elements of some compound words
and compound adjectives preceding nouns.
Mr. Ed was a slow-talking horse.
Other, more specialized uses exist for most punctuation marks.
Consult a handbook for more detailed explanations and examples.
Recommended handbooks include the following:
Strunk, Jr., William and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, 3rd Ed.
New York: Macmillan, 1979.
Maclin, Alice. Reference Guide to English, 2nd Ed. New York:
Holt, Rinehart, 1987.
Fowler, H. Ramsey. The Little, Brown Handbook. Boston: Little,
Brown, 1996.
The
Writing Lab
Punctuation Pattern Sheet
Between independent clauses (contain subject and verb and no subordinator) and
sentences.
Independent Clause . Independent Clause
Independent Clause ; Independent Clause that completes, explains, balances,
or otherwise indicates a relationship
between the clauses too close
for a period to express.
Independent Clause ; conjunctive adverb + Independent Clause
therefore,
however,
consequently,
nevertheless,
indeed,
and others too numerous to mention
Independent Clause , coordinating conjunction + I. C.
,for
,and
,nor
,but
,or
,yet
,so
Dependent clause , Independent clause
Indepentent Clause no punctuation Dependent Clause
Independent Clause* : particulars
*to use a colon, the clause must be a complete sentence
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