Punctuation marks are to writing what vocal delivery is to speech. Can you imagine talking in a monotone without pause? Your audience would have difficulty making sense of your words, let alone figuring out where emphasis and nuance belong.
If you drain the punctuation from your writing, you have no louds, no softs, no expression, no innuendo. If you use only a few punctuation marks, you seriously restrict your style. If you misuse punctuation marks, you send your reader down the wrong road, maybe even up a tree.
You need to understand exactly what each mark can and cannot do, as well as the message it gives to your reader. There aren’t that many marks—fifteen in all. And some are so familiar (periods, question marks) or so seldom necessary (slashes, brackets, ellipses) that the number you need to know by heart is only nine.
Nine is not a lot. But the benefits of understanding these nine are countless.
Commas
Besides incidental jobs (like separating the day from the year in a date), commas play four roles within a sentence:
Separating items in a series of three or more
Examples:
New lockers, bins, racks, and shelves will be added to the ark.
We will hammer, nail, coax, and cajole until the construction is complete.
The result will be a vessel that is logically designed, well organized, and visually attractive.
COMMON QUESTIONS:
While some professional publications (The New Yorker) include it and others (Time Magazine) tend to leave it out, the rule is still to place a comma after every item in a series of three or more. This practice makes sense: with a comma after every item, each gets equal treatment; no item looks more closely related to another because of missing punctuation. Also, leaving out that last comma can cause confusion. For example,
The ark-building manual gives information on analyzing and solving construction problems, avoiding the hazards of welding and staying afloat into old age.
How many topics does that book discuss—two or three? A comma after welding makes it clear:
The ark-building manual gives information on analyzing and solving construction problems, avoiding the hazards of welding, and staying afloat into old age.
Not really. When items are marching across the page, commas show where one stops and the next begins. When items are marching down the page, bullets (or numbers or letters) accomplish that job. Why do it twice?
Example:
The renovated ark will boast many new features:
Note: There’s a period at the end of the final item, to mark the end of the sentence.
How you punctuate and whether you capitalize depend on the emphasis you want.
If you want each item to be seen as a continuation of the overall sentence, don’t punctuate until the end of the last item and don’t capitalize at all.
Example:
We are renovating the ark for several reasons:
If you want the items to receive maximum attention as separate points, then treat each as a new sentence, capitalizing at the beginning and placing a period at the end.
Example:
We are renovating the ark for several reasons:
Surrounding an interruption
Examples:
Our new ark, finally, is a beautiful sight to behold.
This vessel, completely remodeled, is ready for passengers.
The number of passengers, which I’ve yet to determine, must be even.
Note: An interruption can be a word, a phrase, or a clause.
COMMON QUESTION:
No, but they are the most common way. Commas give the interruption normal attention. If you want to give an interruption maximum attention, use a dash to the left and right of it. If you want to give it minimum attention (if you want it to read like an aside comment, as does this interruption), use parentheses around it.
Ending an introduction
Examples:
First, I’ll compose a passenger list.
Resisting the urge to include every single acquaintance,
I’ll limit the list to couples.
Although some couples may be odd, the number of passengers will be even.
Note: An introduction can be a word, a phrase, or a clause.
Beginning an afterthought or final qualifier
Examples:
The gathering will be lively, surely.
The guests will chatter and squawk, getting to know one another.
The event may go down in history, as long as someone keeps a log.
Note: An afterthought or final qualifier can be a word, a phrase, or a clause.
COMMON QUESTION:
No. Here again, you may use a dash or parentheses to distinguish nonessential material from a main idea. A dash gives your final words maximum attention; parentheses give them minimum attention.
Semicolons
Semicolons perform two jobs:
Joining two closely related complete thoughts
Examples:
Jonah reacts quickly and impulsively to situations; Job looks before he leaps.
Patience is a virtue; it is also an art.
After being swallowed by a whale, Jonah had a lot of time to think; he began to understand the wisdom of looking before leaping.
Some impulsive acts are harmless; others have confining consequences.
Separating items in a series when the items contain commas or are unusually long
Examples:
This story involves Jonah, who becomes close with a whale; Job, who loses his shirt; Adam, who covers for a fig leaf; and Eve, who falls for a snake.
The plot gets complicated as Jonah gets to know his captor from the inside out; as Job considers Zen Buddhism; as Adam cannot find an alibi for the fig leaf; and as Eve, usually levelheaded, accepts counsel from a cottonmouth.
Colons
A colon tells the reader that you’re about to specifically explain a general statement. The general statement, to the left of your colon, must be a complete thought (independent clause). The specific explanation, to the right of your colon, can be in any form—a word, a phrase, a clause, or a series of items.
Examples:
As a student, Noah had difficulty in one subject: trigonometry.
Trigonometry is easy for some people: those who understand triangles.
Triangles perplexed Noah: no matter how he viewed them, he couldn’t tell which end was up.
Noah tried valiantly to raise his trigonometry grade: he studied more, he brought apples to his teacher, and he prayed a great deal.
Note: Don’t capitalize after a colon unless you’re writing an independent clause—and, even in that case, capitalizing is optional.
Dashes
First of all, a dash is not a hyphen. It is twice as long (you need to hit the hyphen key twice to create one dash) and it performs very different functions.
Dashes do three jobs, each of which can be accomplished by another punctuation mark. Why, then, use dashes? Because they carry two messages—one related to the job they are doing and the other related to emphasis, clarity, or formality. Here are the roles of dashes:
Surrounding an interruption
Examples:
My daughter—Rebecca—has an imaginary playmate.
My neighbor’s children—Sima, Sarah, and Sam—interact with the real kids on our block.
Note: In the first example, the dashes give the interruption more emphasis than commas or parentheses would. In the second example, the dashes lend more clarity than commas would, since the interruption contains commas.
Leading to an afterthought
Examples:
Rebecca speaks to her friend in a private language—one that I don’t understand.
Her friend replies with abundant good humor—at least, that’s the way it appears.
Note: Although in the first example a comma could lead to the afterthought, the dash gives it more emphasis. In the second example, the dash lends both emphasis and clarity (using commas before and after at least would make it look like an interruption, which it isn’t).
Introducing a specific explanation
Examples:
Rebecca has a name for her playmate—Stefan Stefanopolis.
Stefan has one great quality—he makes Rebecca laugh.
Note: While a colon or parentheses may also be used to distinguish an explanation, the dash creates a different effect: it is less formal than a colon; it gives more attention to the explanation than parentheses.
Hyphens
Hyphens connect multiple adjectives that appear to the left of a noun. What is a multiple adjective? Two or more descriptive words that need each other to create the meaning you want—for example, blue-eyed boy: he is not a blue boy or an eyed boy; blue and eyed must be linked, to make proper sense.
Furthermore, blue-eyed is hyphenated because it appears to the left of boy. If it appeared to the right, it would not be hyphenated—for example, the boy is blue eyed.
More examples:
nine-hole golf course
300-page book
no-nonsense approach
life-affirming goals
labor-intensive work
vine-ripened tomatoes
58-year-old senator
off-the-record comment
four- and six-part harmony
Note: Don’t hyphenate when the first descriptive word is an adverb ending in ly—for example, poorly written script or highly regarded institution.
Parentheses
Parentheses are for surrounding background information, aside comments, material of secondary importance. They de-emphasize the text they contain; they prompt the reader to lower her voice until she exits the parenthetical remark.
Parentheses can occur within a sentence, referring to a given word or phrase; at the end of a clause, referring to the entire statement; or around an upcoming new sentence. (In other words, they can surround an interruption, an afterthought, or a sentence, like the one you’re reading now.)
Examples:
Apparently, Stefan Stefanopolis (my daughter’s imaginary playmate) is quite amusing.
He keeps Rebecca laughing throughout the day (and sometimes into the night).
I’m a little worried that Rebecca doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not. (This morning she asked me why I hadn’t served Stefan any pancakes.)
Note: The second and third examples show that a period can go either outside or inside the closing parenthesis, depending on what just ended—a sentence containing a parenthetical remark or a separate sentence within parentheses.
Double Quotation Marks
Double quotation marks do four jobs:
Surrounding words spoken or written by someone else
Examples:
Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
When he mentioned “liberty,” was he, by any chance, married?
Note: In the first example, there’s a comma after Patrick Henry said because those are introductory words leading to a quoted sentence.
In the second example, there is no punctuation after When he mentioned because what follows is only one quoted word (not a quoted sentence).
Note: Periods and commas belong inside closing quotation marks, no matter what. Don’t even think of placing them outside—just tuck them in.
Surrounding words used as terms
Example:
What do you suppose “liberty” meant to Mr. Henry?
(meaning “the term liberty”)
Surrounding words used sarcastically (to achieve the effect of so-called)
Example:
People in many countries enjoy the “liberty” of voting for the only candidate on the ballot.
Note: Sarcasm is the effect you wind up with if you use quotes where they don’t belong. Quotes are not for showing your discomfort with a colloquial expression. Either make your peace with the idiom and use it without quotes, or choose another way to say what you mean.
Incorrect:
Please don’t “beat around the bush.”
Correct:
Please don’t beat around the bush.
or
Please get to the point.
Surrounding titles of chapters or articles
Examples:
Did you read “Bush on Fire” in Time Magazine?
No, but I read “My Dungeon Shook” in The Fire Next Time.
COMMON QUESTION:
Colons and semicolons belong outside the closing quotation mark because they belong to the overall sentence, rather than to the words in quotes. (It wouldn’t make sense to stop a quote at a colon or semicolon.)
Examples:
I think I know what Patrick Henry meant when he said, “Give me liberty or give me death”: he was expressing a desire to be single again.
Mr. Henry didn’t really mean “give me death” he meant that if he couldn’t divorce, he’d move to New Jersey.
Question marks and exclamation points belong either inside or outside the closing quotation mark, depending on what they belong to—the words in quotes or the overall sentence. In rare instances, a question mark appears before and after the quote.
Examples:
Consider the song “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”
Do you agree that love is “a second-hand emotion”?
What’s the message within “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”?
It may be “A heart can be broken!”
It can’t be “Love is a sweet old-fashioned notion”!
Note: When a sentence that isn’t a question ends with a quotation that is a question (Consider the song “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”), don’t use a period. Even though the overall sentence is not a question, it simply ends when that question mark shows up. No more punctuation.
Single Quotation Marks
A single quotation mark (the same symbol used to create an apostrophe) serves only one purpose: to surround a quotation that occurs inside another quotation. Since double quotation marks encompass the overall quote, you need another way to distinguish the quote within.
Example:
The instructor said, “Whenever I explain punctuation, someone asks, ‘What’s the purpose of single quotes?’”
Note: The example ends with both a single and a double quote because both quotations finish at the same time.
Apostrophes
Apostrophes serve three purposes:
Representing a missing letter within a contraction
Example:
It’s acceptable to use contractions in business writing if you want to achieve a conversational tone.
Making a noun possessive
The way to make a noun possessive depends on whether the noun ends in the letter s. It doesn’t matter whether that noun is singular or plural; what matters is its final letter.
Here’s the rule: If the noun does not end in the letter s, make it possessive by adding an apostrophe and an s. If the noun does end in the letter s, add only an apostrophe.
Examples:
the mouse’s tail
the mice’s tails
the platypus’ bill
the platypuses’ bills
The first two examples are made possessive in the same way (apostrophe s), even though one is singular and the other is plural. The third and fourth examples are also made possessive in the same way (only an apostrophe), even though one is singular and the other is plural.
The only time you have the option of adding an apostrophe and an s to a noun that ends in an s is when that noun is someone’s name—e.g., Myers’s rum. Remember, that extra s is an option; it is also correct to write Myers’ rum.
Making an abbreviation, a letter, or a numeral plural
Example:
The teaching assistants (TA’s) predicted several B’s on student-grade reports and a few 10’s on instructor-performance evaluations.
Note: The apostrophe may also be omitted in the plural form of abbreviations, letters, and numerals—for example, TAs, Bs, 10s.
Ellipses
An ellipsis (…) indicates that something has been deleted from a quote. It doesn’t tell how much has been left out; it shows only that the passage has been reduced to its pertinent parts.
Example:
|
Original text: |
“San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater (ACT), the nation’s only full-time resident repertory company, has a considerably scaled-down season this year.” |
|
Abridged text: |
“San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater…has a considerably scaled-down season this year.” |
Note: If the ellipsis leads to the end of a sentence, follow it with a space and then a final period.
Brackets
Brackets ([ ]) are the opposite of ellipses—they show that something has been added to or changed within quoted material. They come in handy when you want to clarify something for your reader.
Example:
|
Original text: |
“Millions of genes are arranged along the giant strands of DNA in each human cell.” |
|
Enhanced text: |
“Millions of genes are arranged along the giant strands of DNA [commonly known as chromosomes] in each human cell.” |
Slashes
A slash ( / ) means “and or.”
Example:
She is the manager/maintenance person of this ark.
Question Marks
Besides ending an interrogatory sentence, a question mark can turn a declarative statement into an inquiry.
Examples:
What do you do for relaxation?
You call exercise relaxing?
Exclamation Points
An exclamation point indicates enthusiasm or surprise.
Examples:
Congratulations on your promotion!
What a shock!
Note: Use exclamation points sparingly, to preserve their effect. If you use them liberally, they become meaningless. Also, when you do use one, stop at that—don’t type two, three, or four in a row.
Periods
Besides ending a declarative sentence, a period punctuates an abbreviation.
Examples:
Working for the C.I.A. would be a little too exciting.
I would rather work for the I.R.S.
Abbreviations may also be written with no periods—CIA and IRS.
Note: When your sentence ends in an abbreviation, don’t type an additional period—the period at the end of your abbreviation also ends your sentence.
Using correct punctuation is critical to communicating well with readers. Even people who don’t always know how to punctuate when they write do know what punctuation means when they read. For example, they may not understand how to use a semicolon, but when they see one, they know instinctively what it signifies: that one clause has come to a halt and another is about to appear; that each clause is half of a larger statement.
How can it be that we are more knowledgeable as readers than we are as writers?
First, we have a lot more experience with reading than we do with writing. So our exposure to punctuation has been greater than our production of it. Naturally, we are better at interpreting it than we are at using it.
Second, what we know about punctuation resides largely in our unconscious because we gained a good deal of our understanding indirectly—from seeing the marks in action rather than from thinking about what they do. The information we need, as writers, does not always float to the surface on command.
Having conscious knowledge of punctuation is awfully convenient. You’ll never have to scrap a sentence because you don’t know how to mark it. And your readers will know what to do at every point in your text.
QUIZ ON PUNCTUATION
Below is a letter from an adolescent Noah to his parents. Your job is to edit the letter for punctuation. If a mark is wrong, correct it; if a mark is missing, supply it; if all is correct, leave it as is.
Dear Mom and Dad:
|
1 |
As you know, I had been a pretty good student in all subjects until I hit this stone wall called trigonometry. As hard as I try, I just can’t seem to catch on. For many months I have been devoting five minutes a day to studying triangles, yet I still don’t see the point. (Actually, there are three points and I don’t see any of them.) |
|
2 |
What is the use of learning trigonometry? Did either of you study it when you were in school? What in your lives requires an understanding of triangles? Is there something you haven’t told me? |
|
3 |
Okay, here’s what I propose: home schooling. I’ll get up in the morning and I’ll stay home; you’ll get up in the morning and you’ll stay home. We won’t even need to get out of our pajamas. I’ll sit down; you’ll tell me everything I need to know—at least, whatever you can remember. If it turns out that you know a little something about triangles, then I’ll just have to hear it. How bad can it be? |
|
4 |
The alternative is that I run away and live in the forest, where I’ll be tutored by the animals. I’ll gather them around me, one by one, maybe two by two—definitely not three by three, since that number will always remind me of trigonometry. |
|
5 |
I can just imagine what you’re thinking: “It’s happened—he’s flipped. He’s always been a little strange, but this business about ‘Teach me at home or I’ll go live with a bunch of forest animals’ is scary. Maybe we should call the school counselor.” |
|
6 |
Mom, Dad, listen to me: the school counselor is also the trigonometry teacher. You won’t get very far with her. Instead, think about how nice it will be to sit around in our pajamas every day, just (dare I say it?) the three of us. |
Noah
ANSWER TO PUNCTUATION QUIZ
There are no errors in the letter from Noah to his parents. Even though some of the marks are choices—colons can be replaced by dashes, semicolons can be turned into periods or conjunctions, parentheses can be deleted (in paragraph 1) or traded in for dashes (in paragraph 6), and so on—they are all correct.
If you thought you spotted an error, perhaps it is a punctuation choice you would not have made. Or perhaps you don’t fully understand what a given mark can do. Read that part of this chapter again.
Take a moment, every week for several weeks, to focus on the punctuation in a well-written newspaper, magazine, or book. Study it; see whether you can describe the job that each mark is doing.
Start using the marks you never used before (because you didn’t know how they worked).
Get feedback on your ongoing progress from someone who knows the subject well.
Don’t give up—don’t move to the forest. If you put your mind to it for a while, punctuating excellently will become second nature.