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English Punctuation..!

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Punctuation is used to separate words from one other when forming sentences.
It makes written language much easier to understand and can be essential to the meaning.
For example: ‘Woman without her man, is nothing’. ‘Woman! Without her, man is nothing’.
The change in punctuation gives completely different meanings to these two sentences.

The main punctuation ‘marks’ are:

Full stop (period)	Question mark	Exclamation mark	Comma
Semi-colon	Colon	Inverted comma	Quotation marks
Apostrophe	Parentheses	Hyphen (dash)	Underline
Underscore	Italics	Forward slash	Back slash

The following are general punctuation guidelines for English, but it must be noted that there are differences between English and American English.
For example: In English we leave a double space after a full stop or a colon. In American English they leave a single space.
For a more advanced look at this subject, you should refer to a writing guide that deals with your particular area.

1. A full stop (‘period’ in American English) is a dot (.) at the end of a sentence, and means that the sentence is finished and there must be a pause. All sentences end with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark. For example: “I don’t like eating fish.”

Question marks (?) and exclamation marks (!) both have a 'dot' at the base.

A question mark is used at the end of an interrogative (question) sentence.
For example: “Why don’t you like eating fish?”

An exclamation mark is used to express emotion or surprise, often after an interjection;
(i.e. a shout, a yell, a scream, or an exclamation).
For example: “Ouch, that hurt!” or “I can’t believe that it’s raining again!”

2. A comma (,) also means a pause (albeit a short one) and can do various jobs:

A comma is used to separate items in a list (as in descriptive adjectives).
Put it between each item on the list until the last two, then use ‘and’.
For example: “Today I bought a beautiful, long, stylish, black and red skirt.”

It is used in long sentences (between clauses) to separate information and make the sentence easier to read. For example:
“My friend Fred, who is a teacher at the University, likes to play cricket in his spare time.”

Also, we can (if we like) use a comma before a conjunction: i.e. ‘and, but, for, because, so’, etc. to join two clauses in order to form a compound sentence.
For example: ‘The chairs were left out in the rain, so they got very wet’.

3. A semi-colon is a comma below a dot (;) and is used to separate two independent clauses when they are closely related. An example is:
‘In spite of the cold weather, my father likes to be outside; he says he feels healthier in the fresh air.'
This doesn’t happen often however, because it is generally better to leave two independent clauses as individual sentences.
A semi-colon can also be used in lists with ‘double’ items that already contain commas.
For example: I went home with Tony, my brother; Patricia, his wife; and their dog, Sadie.

4. A colon (:) too, can be used in more than one way:

To introduce a definition or an explanation.
For instance: "You have just seen an example here, after the word instance".

A colon can also introduce a list of items, for example:
“You must remember the seven main conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.”

5. ‘Inverted commas’ or “quotation marks” can be single or double.
In English we generally use double "quotation” marks for direct quotations (speech).
For example: “I wonder if it will rain tomorrow?” said Mary.

Single ‘inverted comas’ are used around titles of things like books, movies, etc.
For example: ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ was a movie that starred Jody Foster.
Remember that the main words of a title start with Capital Letters.

NOTE: In American English these two rules tend to be the other way around.

6. Apostrophes (') are like single inverted commas to look at, but they are used in contractions and to show possession:

An apostrophe is used to replace vowel sounds in order to make a contracted form.
For example: I’d be happier if he’d stop making all that noise!

An apostrophe followed by the letter ‘—s’, shows possession. (The Saxon Genitive).
For example: This is Jennifer’s book.

7. Parentheses (Brackets) ( ) are used for explanations or additional information.

To make something clearer. For example: John’s car (his new car) was a Ford Capri.

For suggestions or comments.
For example: It was raining cats and dogs (which means it rained heavily).

Square brackets ( [ ] ) are mainly used for editorial information and for definition.
For example: It [the constitution] states that all men are created equal.

NOTE: for punctuation with parentheses, see ***

8. Hyphen (dash). A ‘hyphen’ ( - ) is generally used for word-breaks.

To avoid putting two similar letters together when adding a prefix.
For example: He was about to re-enter the building.

With a prefix, if the main word has a Capital Letter. For example: He was anti-American.

To separate multiple words. For example: My father-in-law came to see me.

Dashes are somewhat longer than hyphens, and are used in a slightly different way. (There are two types, the ‘en’ dash and the ‘em’ dash). However, this leads to a more progressive knowledge of punctuation and should be learned at Advanced level.

9. Underlining is used as a way of making text stand out, (in school we were always taught to underline Titles). However, with the increased usage of the computer, underlining is used more and more as the symbol of a ‘link’ and is slowly being replaced by italic text.

10. Similarly; underscores ( _ ), forward slashes ( / ), and back slashes ( \ ), are used repeatedly on word processors, and consequently are best learned together with more up-to-the-minute and detailed computer studies.

*** NOTE: Does punctuation go inside or outside the brackets?

You must decide whether the punctuation marks belong to the text inside the brackets or not.
For example:
a) The chairman’s speech (entitled: ‘Do you like History?’) was very boring!
b) The chairman’s speech (about whether we like History) was very boring!

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