Punctuation marks

1. Apostrophe (‘) is most frequently used to indicate genitive singular and plural. It is also
used in contractions to indicate letters omitted.
e.g. the students’ class, I’ve (= I have).

2. Brackets ( ) are used to clarify. They are also used for references and dates in formal
writing.
e.g. As these men and women get older, we learn about their patterns of family
building (and dissolving).
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote Hamlet.

3. Colons (:) indicate a fairly close interdependence between the clauses it separates.
Basically, it indicates that what follows is an explanation of the preceding statement or
it can be used to introduce a list of items preceded by namely, such as, as follows, etc.
e.g. Her wife was very beautiful: she was tall, with big brown eyes and a huge smile
on her lips.
The required conditions for the grant are the following: to be a student under 35,
not to earn more than $15,000 a year and to have passed at least 50 credits.

4. Commas (,) separate parts of a sentence. Together with the full stop, it is the most
commonly used punctuation mark.

- In composed sentences, a comma should be placed in front of the conjunctions

and, but, or, nor.
e.g. This dress is not the right color, nor is it the quality ordered.
- A comma will precede and follow a sentence that acts as a bracket.
e.g. I can arrange a meeting for tomorrow or, if it is convenient, for Friday.
- Complements are separated by a comma when they indicate a sentence.
e.g. Before making a decision, we should talk with everyone.

- A comma is used after an introductory present participle sentence.

e.g. Taking his sweater off, he jumped into the swimming-pool.

- When two or more adjectives modify the same noun, these are separated by a
comma.
e.g. She’s a smart, hard-working student.

- It is used after a letter’s heading.

e.g. Dear Susan,

5. Dash (–) is used to add an afterthought in informal writing, e.g. His family gets on very
well – apart from the normal quarrels everyone has.

6. Full stop (.) or dot is used to end a sentence and after abbreviations, e.g. Dr. Smith

7. Hyphen (-) separates compound words or the prefix from the word, e.g. twenty-one, co-
operation.
 8. Quotations marks (“” ‘’) or inverted commas can be single (‘’) or double (“”) and
enclose the words of direct speech as well as highlight words in a text.
e.g. My brother asked, ‘when is Matt coming?’
I didn’t like the film “Love Actually”.

9. Semi-colons (;) join two independent but related clauses or sentences or to enumerate
things that can be grouped according to some similarities. They are used as a kind of
weak full stop or strong comma in formal writing.
e.g. It was a scary movie; everyone in the cinema was screaming.

Semi-colon is used
- When the conjunctions and, but or, or nor are omitted between two independent
propositions, e.g. The union was willing to compromise; the management was
not.
- When several things are enumerated and they can be grouped according to some
similarity, e.g. For the Barbeque (BBQ), we have bought: beef and pork;
sardines and salmon; wine, coke and beer.
- In sentences joined by although, nevertheless, but, moreover, etc., e.g. The
situation was bad; however, everybody remained optimistic.

10. Capital letters are used:

- At the beginning of a sentence.

- For names of people, places, rivers, etc.
- For titles of people and names of things and places when referring to particular
examples (nicknames), e.g. Oxford University, Ms. Williams, the Big Apple.
- For countries and adjectives of nationalities, e.g. France, French.
- For the names of the days, months and historical dates, e.g. Thursday, October,
Christmas, the Middle Ages.
- For titles of books, plays, etc., e.g. Richard III.
- For abbreviations, e.g. Ph.D. (Philosophy Doctor)

Exercises

1. All forms of punctuation have been omitted from the following text. Write it out, putting in
all the necessary punctuation marks and capital letters.

is the american family a thing of the past asks psychologist mirk throughout the western
world the changing nature of families has led to a highly charged debate conservatives
view family breakdown as a wholly negative phenomenon caused by the following a
wider decline in moral values and a selfish individualism over the traditional values of
responsibility and obligation they believe that social policy should primarily protect the
traditional nuclear family from the forces of change by contrast social progressives reject
the notion of family breakdown and argue that we must accept the transition to a new
diversity of family forms while conservative accounts of family change tend to be
simplistic and unhelpful progressive accounts tend to be dismissive of the implications of
 the far-reaching changes to family formation in recent decades people marry later many
choose simply to cohabit one third of marriages end in divorce and single-parent families
are part of everyday life each of these changes affects the well-being of family members
often in complex ways on the other hand it is important not to overstate the changes the
nuclear family remains the model to which most people aspire and the dominant form in
practice

2. The original text was in three separate paragraphs. Decide where to insert the paragraph
breaks.

3. The following paragraph has no punctuation at all! Rewrite it, adding the necessary
punctuation.

ms turner gets up at half past six every morning after breakfast she leaves home to take the
underground which is nearby and goes to work in a small clothing shop in covent garden
shes the owner of the shop she spends the whole morning attending customers supervising
the clothings deliveries and asking for new items when necessary at one o clock she goes
to have lunch in a café nearby she usually has a sandwich with some side salad and a
bottle of water after lunch they change the clothes of the shop window and attend
customers there are usually more in the afternoon when the shop closes at six o clock she
makes a balance of the earnings of the day and takes the underground before going home
she goes shopping to cook dinner she usually dines around eight while she watches TV
then she has a shower and goes to bed at elevenish.

4. Find the punctuation mistakes in the following text and correct them:

when a spanish student stays with an english family. There may be some
misunderstandings caused by differences in customs? one of the most common
misunderstandings is kissing; as soon as they are introduced: the student kisses his/her
family following the spanish convention. Another source of discontent is the meal”s
timetable; which is different in england- breakfast takes place early in the morning and it,s
a heavy meal, made up of eggs, bacon, toast, cereal, etc.; then lunch is between 12 and 1
pm and it’s quite a light meal (usually a sandwich, a drink and a piece of fruit); finally,
dinner is usually a heavy meal and takes place at 7ish (students in england should adjust to
the british timetable. if they want to integrate with their families).