Punctuation in academic writing

Beyond commas and full stops.

. ? !Full stops can be used for emphasis – mostly in newspaper articles or informal writing. This is happening. Now. In 2013.

:Explanations:First, Jones uses the following principle of logical reasoning when he is explaining the facts of the robbery case: Explanations should fit all the relevant facts. Lists: see belowSubdivisions (titles, headings):Panning for gold: asking critical questions

;Instead of full stops:Donors were fully aware of the scope of our study and signed an informed consent form (supporting online text); donors voluntarily donated oocytes and cumulus cells (including DNA) for therapeutic cloning research and its applications only, not for reproductive cloning; there was no financial payment.In lists: In this report, we provide three lines of evidence supporting the NT origins of SCNT-hES-1: 1) DNA extraction was verified for each of the 242 enucleated oocytes [Fig. 1, A and B (arrows)]; 2) DNA fingerprinting shows heterozygous, not homozygous, chromosomes (Fig. 4, A to C); and 3) biparental, and not unimaternal, expression of imprinted genes (Fig. 4D).

()Added information:…her most expansive autobiographical work, begun in 1939, as far as the events of 1909 (in particular Strachey‘s proposal) and beyond.

,See Michael Swan‘s examples

- – Use as colons, semi-colons or brackets

‘ “Special use of words: The myth of the “right answer“… the fastidious judgement one expects

from her… but wait: that word ‘judgement‘ – it will not do.

Doris Lessing, Foreword to Carlyle‘s House and Other Sketches by Virginia Woolf

- – Use as colons, semi-colons or brackets

Now accepted in academic writing too: The first entry in this early journal opens

with Virginia Woolf – Virginia Stephen at the time – finding herself where she did not want to be.

David Bradshaw, Introduction to Carlyle‘s House and Other Sketches by Virginia Woolf

The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum What does this mad myth signify

The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?

Kundera, M., 1984. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated from Czech by M. H. Heim. London: Faber and Faber.