COLON. The
colon (:) stands before and sharply sets o lists and dependent or independent
phrases or
clauses. It appears in this book frequently before examples:
“The important parts
areas follows punctuality, neatness, The colon also appears in time figures to separate hours and minutes See you at COMMA. The
comma (,) separates elements without much abruptness or distance put another way, commas link things as much as they separate them and mark borders between things The photojournalist
photographed lions, cheetahs, and elephants.
The photographer took the photos in Africa,
and developed them in Indiana, where the studio is The commas in the example link and mark borders between items in a list and then between two independent clauses, one of which has within it nouns in
apposition (rephrased
versions of the nouns next to which they stand) to the
object of a
preposition. Many other grammatical entities are similarly linked and delimited by commas.
Commas also appear in
numbers greater than 999 that aren’t dates (“4,367”), in
dates between days and years (November 23, 1963”), and to set o honori c
titlesand direct
quotations (Jan Smith, PhD, said, That’s right.”).
DASH
. The
dash (—) is an abrupt or sharp divider of ideas or words that usually sets o something added or interjected into a sentence Everyone there—Bill, Mary,
Inga—agreed.” See
interjection.ELLIPSIS
. This punctuation mark (…) indicates the omission of some words (three periods) or
sentences (four periods) from quoted speech or from any incomplete statement whether attributed to someone
or not The speaker said, The points to consider are sixteen in number first I decided that enough was enough….”
EXCLAMATION POINT. The
exclamation point marks an emphatic, loud, or important statement You better believe it See
emphasis.HYPHEN
. The
hyphen (-) joins
two words together to form a compound word: The decision-making process took too long The hyphen also indicates that a word fragment at the end of a line should be joined to the rest of the word that appears at the beginning of the next line:
“Here is the example that will show a hyphen appearing randomly at the end of one line.”
PARENTHESES. Interjected words in a sentence can be marked in several ways,
including by enclosure in
parentheses: Everyone there (Chris, Jan, Sandy) agreed.”
Commas or dashes can often be used for the same purpose.
PERIOD
. The period (.) marks the end of sentences that don’t end with question marks or exclamation points That is so Periods
also indicate the ends of abbreviations:“Mr. Jones is here.”
QUESTION MARK. This punctuation ends a
question: “Isn’t that so?”
QUOTATION MARKS. This punctuation surrounds a direct quote King said, I have a dream ” Single quotes appear to mark direct
quotes within quoted speech, as in the example.
Quotation marks around single words or phrases are also used to indicate that they are somehow in question or are being considered as entities or grammatical categories in themselves Dream is a noun.”
SEMICOLON
. The
semicolon (;) functions somewhat like the comma, but it is used to mark clearer distinctions between or among things or when the phrases or clauses it separates already contain commas We saw lions, tigers, and rhinos and then we left the zoo and went to the movies.”
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