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English Writing: Punctuation |
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Tip:
Although there are general rules for English punctuation, there are differences of styles between, for example, British and American English, some publishers and some writers. |
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 Punctuation is the system of symbols (. , ! - : etc)
that we use to separate sentences and parts of sentences,
and to make their meaning clear.
Each symbol is called a "punctuation mark". |
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The Value of Punctuation
An English teacher wrote these words on the whiteboard: "woman without her man is nothing". The teacher then asked the students to punctuate the words correctly.
The men wrote:
"Woman, without her man, is nothing."
The women wrote:
"Woman! Without her, man is nothing." |
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Summary of Punctuation Marks |
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| Mark |
Name |
Example |
| . |
full stop/period |
I like English. |
| , |
comma |
I speak English, French and Thai. |
| ; |
semi-colon |
I don't often go swimming; I prefer to play tennis. |
| : |
colon |
You have two choices: finish the work today or lose the contract. |
| - |
hyphen |
This is a rather out-of-date book. |
| — |
dash |
In each town—London, Paris and Rome—we stayed in youth hostels. |
| ? |
question mark |
Where is Shangri-La? |
| ! |
exclamation mark |
"Help!" she cried. "I'm drowning!" |
| / |
oblique/slash |
Please press your browser's Refresh/Reload button. |
| " |
quotation marks |
"I love you," she said. |
| ' |
apostrophe |
This is John's car. |
| ( ) |
round brackets |
I went to Bagkok (my favourite city) and stayed there for two weeks. |
| [ ] |
square brackets |
The newspaper reported that the hostages [most of them French] had been released. |
| { } |
braces |
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| ... |
ellipsis |
One happy customer wrote: "This is the best program...that I have ever seen." |
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