Dialogue,
quotes, and quotation marks: use quotation marks
( “ ” or " " ), to indicate direct quotes.
Commas and periods go inside; semicolons and colons go outside;
question marks, exclamation marks, and dashes go insides if
they are part of the quotation, outside if not. |
| “Quotations are capitalized and punctuated
like this.” |
quote |
| “Quotes,” Mrs. Whitehouse said in class today,
“have to be punctuated correctly.” |
interrupted quote |
| “Is that correct?” she asked. |
with question mark |
| “Yes!” he replied. |
with exclamation mark |
| “Am I wrong in thinking Mrs. Whitehouse said, ‘Use
single quotes for quotes within quotes’?” Jane asked. |
quote within quote |
| Who said, “Give me liberty or give me death”? |
punctuation outside a quote |
| Mrs. Whitehouse said, “Start each person’s dialogue
as a new paragraph to make it easier to distinguish who is speaking.” |
new speaker new paragraph |
| Mrs. Whitehouse said we should never use quotation marks for
indirect quotes, like this one. |
NOTE indirect quotes |
| While she was talking I thought, “This is getting boring.” |
directly quoted thought |
| “I was bothered by the report. It made me wonder . .
.” |
trailing thought |
"I was thinking" |
interrupted dialogue |
| "You weren't hired to think." |
| Although quotes start with the first word capitalized, as
Mrs. Whitehouse said, when a quote is blended into another sentence
“the first word is not capitalized.” |
blended quotes |
“This is paragraph one of a multi-paragraph quote.
. . .
“This is paragraph two—the last paragraph.
Only the last paragraph has a closing quotation mark. The preceding
paragraph(s) have opening quotation marks only.”
|
multi-paragraph quotes |
| I like Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea and some of his
short stories like “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,”
“In Our Time,” or “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”;
however, I never liked “The Killers.” |
short literary works. |
| When I use the word “term” as a word or term,
it is set off in quotation marks, or they are italicized. |
a word used as a term |
| |
|
| Apostrophe: use
an apostrophe ( ’ or ' ) to indicate possession or contractions
|
| The meeting’s purpose is to show you how to vote. Tom’s
vote will count. Everyone’s vote will count. |
singular possessive |
| The meetings’ purpose is to show you how to vote. The
citizens’ votes will count. |
plural possessive |
| E.E. Cummings’ or E.E. Cummings’s. [Not Jesus’s,
where it is awkward.] |
possessive words ending in s |
| Simon and Schuster’s book list [taken as a group]; however,
Montaigne’s and Locke’s essays are interesting [members
of a group taken separately]. |
compound possessives |
| The meetings are intended to teach you about voting. |
NOTE not possessive |
| The choice is hers to make, or are you saying it is yours? |
possessive pronouns |
| Didn’t (did not), ’em (them), should’ve
(should have) |
contractions |
| Let’s try to get the tent posts set before Tom lets
go of the rope. |
Let’s try (let us try)
. . .lets (let, lets, letting) |
| Its name is hard to pronounce; so it’s hard to remember.
|
Its name (the name of it) .
. . so it’s (so it is) |
| |
|
Colon:
the colon ( : ) has almost the weight of a period (as a stop),
but it connects what precedes it with what follows. As Garner
(MAU) says, it “promises the completion of something
just begun.” |
| The Speaker of the House left some chips on the table: if
the President agreed to the amendment, the House would vote
on the bill. |
linking two separate clauses
or phrases to indicate a step forward |
| Man proposes: God disposes. |
structural balance |
| The sources are: Modern English Usage, Modern
English Usage, Writer’s Guide and Index to English,
and A Manual of Style. |
introducing a list of things |
| Regarding the use of a colon to separate and link two separate
sentences, Garner says: “Authorities are divided on whether
the first word should be capitalized.” |
formally introducing a quote |
| Despite is testimony to the court, his behavior can be summed
up in one word: cowardice. |
emphasis |
| Dear Mr. Smythe: |
after a salutation, formal |
| The ratio of boys to girls in third
grade is 1:1.4. |
between numbers in a ratio |
| The meeting starts at 5:45. |
between hours and minutes |
| |
|
Comma:
the comma ( , ) is the least emphatic most varied of the punctuation
marks. There are two styles of use: open, which has fewer
commas, and close, which has more commas and tends to have
fewer miscues. There are nine common uses. |
| The birds, the primates, and the large cats were all we had
time to see. |
items in a series |
| Students will go to room 207, and teachers will go to the
lounge. |
coordinated main clauses |
| After the lunch break, we will all meet in the gym. |
introductory phrases |
| I promise, however, it won’t happen again. He said to
me, as if it wasn’t important, that he would take care
of the matter. |
parenthetical (nonrestrictive)
word, phrase, or clause |
| The old, rusted, red, broken-down wagon was half buried under
the wet leaves. |
adjectives |
| Mr. Jackson said, “The forms don’t need to be
completed until Saturday.” |
direct, not indirect, speech
|
| Having finished his work, he left work early. David, didn’t
we talk about the meeting before? |
participial or verbless, phrases,
vocatives |
| Dear Jean, |
after a salutation, informal
|
| On March 27, 2009, we’ll meet at 1336 East Central,
Glendale, Arizona. |
parts of an address or date |
| |
|
| Dash: the em-dash
( — ) marks an interruption in a sentence. |
| I like the dash—it adds a lighter more open look to
a page of type—but most people prefer parentheses or commas. |
parenthetical |
| The purpose of punctuation is obvious—it makes it easier
to understand the written word. |
replacing a colon |
| "I was thinking" |
interrupted dialogue |
| "You weren't hired to think." |
| When you wash your hands—use warm water and soap. |
emphasis |
| |
|
| Ellipsis: the
ellipsis points ( . . . ) indicate that something has been omitted.
|
| I like the dash . . . but most people prefer parentheses or
commas. [see complete sentence above, under Dash] |
omission |
| Our variety of fruit flavored ice creams (mango, lemon, orange,
papaya . . .) is what we’re famous for. |
unenumerated series, et cettera |
| “I was bothered by the report. It made me wonder . .
.” |
trailing thought or pause |
| The bank robber held the gun close to the teller’s head.
“I would suggest . . . you cooperate.” |
unstated alternative |
| |
|
Exclamation
Mark: an imperative sentence
(“Stop at the stop sign.”) may end with a period.
Use the exclamation mark ( ! ) to show strong emotion or urgency
(“Stop! Didn’t you see the stop sign?”).
|
| I hate Mrs. Whitehouse! |
strong exclamation
|
| |
|
| Hyphen:
the hypen ( - ) is used to show a end-of-line word break, phrasal
adjectives, to join compound words. |
This use occurs at the end of a line of type. If this were
the end, its use is evi-
|
end-of-line break |
| dent, don’t you think? |
| tenement-house, brother-in-law, one-half, vice-president,
thirty-two . |
compound word |
bookcase, crosswalk, schoolhouse, housekeeper, thunderstorm
. . .
(see http://www.rickwalton.com/curricul/compound.htm)
|
NOTE hyphenless compound words |
| pay-as-you-go, up-to-date, first-class, narrow-minded |
phrasal adjective |
| pro-Clinton, ex-President Bush |
prefixes |
| re-collect/recollect, re-sign/resign, re-cover/recover |
meaning and clarity |
| |
|
| Parentheses:
parentheses ( ( ) ) enclose words, phrases, or sentences that
provide interpolated or supplementary material, without altering
the meaning of the actual sentence. |
| Punctuation is somewhat boring (I think it is poorly taught
in school), but important. |
interpolations and remarks |
| Mrs. Whitehouse taught tenth-grade English (no one liked her)
for thirty years. |
asides |
| Fowler (The King’s English, Oxford University
Press, 1936) is quite opinionated when it comes to punctuation.
|
references |
| We will send you four (4) books. |
numbers |
| |
|
| Period: use a
period ( . ) to end most sentences, with abbreviations, and
with numbers as a decimal point. |
| Most sentences end with a period. |
ending a declarative sentence |
| She wondered why this took so long. |
ending an indirect question |
| Dr. |
Mrs. |
i.e. |
| PhD. |
Ms. |
e.g. |
| A.M. |
B.C. |
etc. |
|
abbreviations are followed by a period |
| OH |
AZ |
NATO |
| IRS |
IBM |
FTC |
| SEC |
UN |
ACLU |
|
NOTE agencies and states have no period |
| It costs $95.27. |
decimal point |
| |
|
| Question Mark:
use the quotation mark( ? ) at the end of a direct quote. |
| Where is Mrs. Whitehouse? |
direct question |
| I wonder where Mrs. Whitehouse went. Jane asked me where she
went too. |
NOTE indirect question has no
question mark |
| Is the rental car available tomorrow? deluxe? insured? fully
gassed? |
separate emphasis to interrogative
elements |
| Socrates 469BC (?) - 399BC |
in parentheses to show doubt |
| Do not write: I read some of John’s short stories (?)
before he submitted them. |
NOTE do not use for irony or
humor |
| |
|
Semicolon:
the semicolon ( ; ) is used to separate independent clauses
not joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor);
to separate independent clauses linked by a conjunctive adverb
(however, moreover, therefore); and it is used between a series
of items containing commas. |
| He got the job because of his experience; he kept the job
through hard work. |
no coordinating conjunction |
| He got the job because of his experience; however, he lost
it through his laziness. |
conjunctive adverb |
| I like movies, especially westerns; mystery novels; and classical
music, early music in particular. |
series with commas |
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