Punctuation Guide

Full Stops and Capital Letters

Sentences start with a capital letter. Unless the sentence is a question or exclamation, it ends with a full stop.

A sentence makes sence by itself (but can contain words like ‘she/he, it, they/them that refer to someone or something from a previous sentence.

Examples:

“Maria loved Paris. She thought it was a beautiful city.”

I love my cats, Persephone and Toby.

They’re really cute and affectionate.

Yesterday, we had a great day out. It was fun.

Capital letters are also used for:

I (eg “I am...”); Proper nouns (the actual names of places, days of the week, months of the

year, businesses, organisations, people and animals), such as Britain, Bradford, Saturday, July, Vodafone, Age UK, Lee and Lucky;

The first, last and ‘main’ words of a title, heading or headline:

To Kill a Mockingbird

Full Stops and Capital Letters

Question Marks

Use a question mark to show that the sentence is a question.

Questions usually start with the words ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘whose’ ‘how’, ‘which’, ‘am’ ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘did’, ‘do’, ‘can’, ‘could’, ‘should’, ‘would’.

For example:

“Are you ready yet?”

“Can you help me, please?”

“Do you like spicy food?”

Commas

1. Use commas to separate items in a list of three or more.

An “item” may refer to a noun, action verb, verb phrase, or adjective phrase.(http://slideplayer.com/slide/6013471/)

Examples:

1 2 3 4 “He has a cat, a dog, a rabbit, and a guinea pig.”

1 2 3

“They were walking, talking, and, eating at the same time!”

1 2

“They were walking at a fairly fast pace, talking very loudly, and 3

eating their breakfasts at the same time!”

1 2

“Jo ate a low-fat breakfast, a healthy and nutritious lunch, and 3a huge carton of greasy chips for supper!”

Action verbs

Nounss

Verb phrases- groups of words that give extra information about the action )

Adjective phrases- groups of words that give extra information about the noun

2. Use a comma to separate a town/ city, county, and country/ state.

Examples:

I live in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK.

Last year, she moved to Paris, France.

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3. Use a comma to separate the day of the week, the day of the month and the year.

Example:

Today is Friday, 13th January, 2017.

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4. You can (but don’t necessarily need to) use commas before a coordinating conjunction, such as and, but, or, or so:

“I like classic rock, and symphonic metal.”

“I love heavy metal music, but I hate hardcore.”

“Would you like to go for a meal after the film, or would you prefer to go home?”

“He’s really good at rollerblading, so he shouldn’t find ice skating particularly difficult.”

5. Use commas to separate words and phrases that add extra information about the subject (when they are not essential to the rest of the sentence, or needed to identify a specific item or person from possible others.)

Examples:

Jake, a seventeen-year-old boy, loves to watch horror films.

(Note that ‘Jake loves to watch horror films’ still makes sense without the extra information in the middle.)

• Harry’s two best friends, Ron and Hermione, are very loyal to him.

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6. Use commas to separate quotes from the rest of the sentence.

Examples:

“I’m going home,” Jess announced.

Sara asked, “Why? I thought you planned to stay out until late.”

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7. Use commas when addressing (talking to) someone.

Examples:

“Stick with me, Gordie. Stick with me, man.” “Adam, what did you think of the film?”

“Is his leg broken, Doctor?”

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8. Use a comma to separate an introductory element (introductory part) from the rest of the sentence.

Examples:

“Yes please, I’d like some water.”

“Sorry, we don’t have enough room.”

“On cold mornings, I don’t want to leave my bed.”

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9. Use a comma to separate an introductory dependent clause from the main clause (remember that the main clause would still make sense on its own, but a dependent clause needs the rest of the sentence to make sense.)

Examples:

If you pass your exam, I will give you a bar of chocolate.

When you leave, make sure you lock the door.

Wherever she is, I bet she’s having a great time.

Dependent clause

Introductory element

Main clause/part of the sentence (which would still make sense by itself)

Main sentence

Exclamation Marks

An exclamation is “a sudden cry or remark expressing surprise, strong emotion, [laughter], or pain (definition from Oxford Dictionaries, · © Oxford University Press)

In many cases, you can use an exclamation where you might use an emoticon or ‘lol’ at the end of a sentence on Facebook or a text message.

Examples:

“Wow! That’s awesome!”

“Damn!”

“Stop that right now!

“Ow! That really hurt!”

“Oh my days!

Quotation Marks (also known as ‘speech marks’)Speech marks are placed before and after direct speech (when you write the words that the person has said.)

For example:

“I’m going home,” Jess announced.

Sara asked, “Why? I thought you planned to stay out until late.”

However, you don’t use them for reported speech:

Jess said that she was going home.

Sarah asked her why.

Speech marks are also used when you copy directly from a text, to show that it is somebody else’s words.

Direct speech allows the person to speak their own words, but reported speech simply talks about what was said, without quoting what the person actually said.

Inverted Commas

(also known as ‘single quotation marks’)

Around idioms/sayings and expressions/terms coined

Examples:

‘What did Mariyah mean when she said she was “sitting on the fence”?’ Julia asked.

To me, she’s just another ‘mean girl’ type.

What does the Martin Luther King mean by the word ‘dream’ in his speech?

To show that a word/phrase is used to reflect somebody else’s view and not necessarily that of your own

Examples

She doesn’t have time for us now she’s friendly with the ‘cool’ people.

He’s led a very privileged life and clearly doesn’t understand what things are like for ‘lowly plebs’ like us.

Around the title of something.

For example:

One of my favourite Christmas songs is ‘Fairytale of New York.’

‘I Have a Dream’ is a famous speech on racial equality by Martin Luther King.

NB

‘The Oxford Guide to Style’ advises that inverted commas should be used to show the titles of TV/radio programmes, journal articles, short poems, chapters in books [and websites, speeches, and other non-major texts.] However, it suggests that major text such as films, novels, religious scriptures, musical works, and names of houses/public buildings should, instead, be written in italics.

Because this is difficult to do when writing by hand, you should ask your tutor whether names/title of major works etc. should be underlined or placed in single inverted commas.

Quotes within quotes:

According to ‘The Oxford Guide to Style’ (http://www.eng-lan), in the UK, single inverted commas are used around the ‘outer quote’, with double inverted commas marking the ‘inner quote.’

For example:

Calum declared, ‘To quote Ahmed, that revision site was “as much use as a chocolate kettle.”’

Ellipses

NB

We say ‘ellipsis’ for one and ‘ellipses’ for two or more

“Depending on how they are used/where they appear in a sentence, ellipses can show an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, an echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence” (definition adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis.)

Ellipses are often used in direct speech to imitate the way people tend to speak.

For example:

“I just thought…”

“She said he was… Well, let’s just say that she didn’t like him very much.”

Apostrophes

Apostrophes have two uses:

1. To show that some letters have been taken out of a word to shorten it. For example, do not becomes don’t. In very informal language, such as casual speech, because might be shortened to ’cause

2. To show that something belongs to, or is connected with, something else. This is sometimes known as a possessive apostrophe. To show belonging, you add ‘s.

Examples:

The newspaper’s readers This refers to the readers of that newspaper (think of the readers ‘belonging’ to the newspaper.)

The cat’s whiskers

1 cat

The cats’ whiskers

2 cats

This says that the whiskers belong to the (one) cat (the apostrophe goes before the s)

This says that the whiskers belong to more than one cat (the apostrophe goes after the s.)

When using a possessive apostrophe with a collective noun that doesn’t end with s (for example, children, people, men, women etc.), you need to add ’s as though you were writing about one person/thing.

To make it easier to understand and remember, a

The dog’s bowl was full.

The three dogs’ bowls were full.

The children’s room was messy.

Dashes and Hyphens

Note that, although dashes and hyphens look alike, they serve a different purpose.

Hyphens are used to link words together to

form compound words (for example, ‘warm-hearted’, ‘British-Asian’, ‘Anglo-Irish’, or ‘singer-songwriter’);

link hyphenated names (such as ‘Anne-Marie’ or ‘John-James’);

link a prefix to another word (‘Co-operate’ or ‘pre-Victorian’);

Link together words in common phrases (‘thirty-year-old man’) and clichés or idioms- especially when they are used as adjectives (to describe nouns.) For example:

‘She was living an “as-good-as-it-gets” lifestyle.’

‘I don’t like their “holier-than-thou” attitude.’

Dashes Dashes can used (in a similar way to round brackets) to add extra information,

explanations or comments to a sentence (please refer to the ‘Round Brackets/Parentheses’ page below.)

Example:

“Parentheses- also known as ‘round brackets’- can be used to

clarify- or explain- what we mean.”

This both adds extra information and clarifies the meaning of the sentence.

“Donald Trump- in his typically selfish manner- claims, “You can

never be too greedy.”

Like semicolons, they can also be used to link together two independent/main sentences.

Examples:

“I’ve been there- it’s fantastic!”

“I didn’t like the Stephen King film, Carrie- it’s too scary!”

As Mignon Fogarty explains, dashes tend to emphasize the following/enclosed text and make it sound ‘louder’/more dramatic than when brackets, commas or semicolons are used (http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/dashes-parentheses-and-commas.)

Yet, as Oxford Dictionaries.Com explains, dashes tend to be used in informal types of writing, rather than in more formal pieces.

Texts that tend to use dashes include personal letters/emails, blogs, direct speech (when quoting somebody or writing dialogue in a story) and in less formal newspaper/magazine articles https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/punctuation/dash-and-em-dash.

Because dashes mimic the way that people tend to speak (a dramatic pause or pause for thought, followed by a quickly spoken additional part), they are useful for making texts sound conversational and for quoting what a person/fictional character says.

Dashes are used here to add a comment.

Round brackets/Parentheses

“You use [round brackets] to surround something that seems a bit out of place in the sentence—an aside, a clarification, or a commentary” (Mignon Fogarty, http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/dashes-parentheses-and-commas)

As Fogarty explains, both round brackets and dashes can be used to mark an ‘interruption’ to the main sentence.

However, she notes that the information in round brackets tends to be a ‘quieter’ addition of information, whereas dashes ‘highlight’ the writing they contain.

Oxford Dictionary adds, “If you removed the bracketed [writing], the sentence would still make perfectly good sense” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/punctuation/parentheses-and-brackets.)

Yet, round brackets are useful if we want to add some more information, clarify (further explain) what we mean, or make a comment, without disrupting the meaning and grammar of the main sentence.

Using Round Brackets to Add Extra InformationExamples:

“I named one cat Persephone (‘Sephie’ for short) after Demeter’s daughter from Greek mythology.”

“My other cat (a recently adopted stray) is called Toby.”

NB This additional information can also be enclosed between two commas or two dashes.

Using Round Brackets to Clarify MeaningExamples:

“Parentheses (also known as ‘round brackets’) can be used to clarify (explain or make clear) what we mean.”

“When I took Toby to see the vet, he (Toby) became agitated and leaped off the examination table onto my shoulder.”

Using Round Brackets to Make a Comment

Examples:

“Sephie doesn’t like visiting the vet either (not that anyone could blame her) because she doesn’t like to be prodded and poked at.”

“I firmly believe that people who practice dog fighting (the psychopathic monsters!) should be given long prison sentences for their cruelty.”

Semicolons

1. Use semi colons to link two associated sentences together without using a conjunction:

For example:

Sofia passed her exam. She was very happy.

Sofia passed her exam, so she was very happy.

Sofia passed her exam; she was very happy.

A semicolon makes a clear link between the two sentences/clauses and sounds more ‘dramatic’ than when a conjunction is used.

(Check the WTH page to learn how to avoid ‘comma splices.’)

2. Use semicolons to separate items that contain lengthy explanations/descriptions (which may also include commas) in a list of three or more- especially if the explanations also require commas.

This helps the reader to separate the different items from one another, and understand which description/explanations belongs to each item.

Example:

1. “Jas had a smallholding with a small collection of animals. This collection

consisted of Teddy, an old shire horse with black and white markings and a placid

temperament; Jennie, a small but lively donkey; two white goats, Donnie and Marie,

who would eat almost anything; and a friendly collie dog named Lassie.”

Here, the two sentences are separated by a full stop.

Now, the two clauses are joined using a conjunction

1

2 3

4

NB

The two goats are classed as one item because this sentence groups them as a pair (as shown by the description of them as ‘two goats’.)

If the sentence had read, “…Jennie, a small but lively donkey; a white goat, Donnie; another white goat, Marie, who would eat almost anything…” Donnie and Marie would have been classed as separate ‘items.’

2. “The siblings were Dan, a cheeky but likeable sixteen-year-old; Lena, a studious

fourteen-year-old with a quirky sense of humour; and cute, mischievous ten-year-old

Leila.” 3

1 2

In the examples below, the colon replaces the highlighted phrases (word groups.)

Examples:

“Amira has many qualities, such as loyalty, bravery, compassion, and intelligence.”

“Amira has many qualities: loyalty, bravery, compassion, and intelligence.”

Once again, this makes the sentence sound more concise (short) and dramatic.

As grammarbook.com also explains, the information following the colon may “explain, illustrate, paraphrase, or expand on” what is said in the first part of the sentence (the part before the colon.)

Examples:

“Amira knew what she wanted from friendship: loyalty.”

“Amira knew what she wanted from friendship: loyalty was vital.

Colons When introducing a list, ‘a colon means “here’s what I mean,”’

‘including’ (www.grammarbook.com) ‘such as’, ‘these are/were’, ‘which are/were’, ‘This was/is’, or ‘for instance’ etc.