Punctuation Review, Part 2

by Glynnis WhitwerCOMPEL Training

What is Punctuation?

The marks, such as period, comma and parentheses, used in writing to separate sentences and their elements and to clarify meaning.

?“ ”

!-

–Phillip Howard, The State of the Language: English Observed, 1985

“Punctuation is bound to change, like the rest of language; punctuation is made for man, not man

for punctuation; a good sentence should be intelligible without the help of punctuation in most

cases; and, if you get in a muddle with your dots and dashes, you may need to simplify your

thoughts, and shorten your sentence. ”

❖ Colon

❖ Hyphen

❖ Parenthesis

❖ Dash

❖ Brackets

❖ Braces

❖ Ellipsis

Colon❖ A colon is used after a statement (usually an independent clause) that

introduces a quotation, an explanation, an example, or a series.

❖ I want the following items: butter, sugar and flour.

❖ Capitalize the first word after a colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence.

❖ The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so. (Gore Vidal)

❖ Put one space after the colon.

❖ Use a colon to introduce a quote of more than one sentence.

The teacher said: “Please sit down. We’re going to start the test.”

❖ Use a comma to introduce a direct quote of one sentence.

The teacher said, “Please sit down.”

Hyphen

Hyphen

❖ Use with a compound moderator, or a phrase that functions as a unit, to modify a noun.

❖ Full-time job (modifiers can’t stand alone)

❖ The 3-year-old child played with a toy.

❖ It’s a dog-eat-dog world.

❖ A 6-foot man eating shark was killed. (The man was killed.)

❖ A 6-foot man-eating shark was killed. (The shark was killed.)

Use hyphens to avoid confusion.

❖ A little used car or a little-used car (both modifiers can stand alone, but they mean something different together)

After a noun or verb

❖ When the compound modifiers come after the noun, and after a form of the verb “to be,” retain the hyphen

We entered a well-lit room.

The room we entered was well-lit.

We followed him into a room, well lit with candles and a fire.

Punctuation used for emphasis

Dash

• Joins numbers in a range, such as “1993–99” or “1200–1400 B.C.” or

“John 3:31–33” or open-ended ranges, like “1934–”

• Joins words that describe a range, like “July–October 2010”

Endash or N dash

Emdash or M dash

• Used to emphasize content between the dashes.

Parenthesis

❖ Parentheses are used to emphasize content.

❖ They place more emphasis on the enclosed information than commas.

❖ Use parentheses to set off nonessential material, such as dates, clarifying information, or sources, from a sentence.

Other punctuation w/ parenthesis

❖ As a general rule, don't use a comma, colon, or semicolon directly in front of a parenthesis (though you may, as here, use one of these marks after a closing parenthesis):

She found a hedgehog, and a snakeskin (but no snake), and a rock that looked just like a frog, and a toad that looked just like a rock. (Neil Gaiman, Coraline. HarperCollins, 2002)

Stand alone sentence in parenthesis:

❖ All writers who pursue their training are smart. (Compel Training members are brilliant.)

Sentence in parenthesis within a sentence.

❖ She finally sat down to write (there had been more interruptions than she expected) when the phone rang.

Brackets [ ]❖ “Brackets are used in scholarly prose mainly to enclose

material – usually added by someone other than the original writer – that does not form a part of the surrounding text.” Chicago Manual of Style

❖ We received the following reply to our query: "Thank yo [sic] for the invitation, but I will be unable to attend this year."

❖ Chicago prefers brackets as parenthesis within parenthesis.

Braces { }❖ “Braces, often called curly brackets, provide yet another

option for enclosing data and are used in various ways in certain programming languages. They are also used in mathematical and other specialized writing. They are not interchangeable with parenthesis or brackets.” Chicago Manual of Style

❖ Use a set of braces to denote a numeric set. For example:

❖ {1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64}

Ellipsis …

❖ From the Ancient Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis, "omission" or "falling short")

The omission of a word, phrase, line, paragraph or more from a quoted passage.

“I thought it was funny …”

Suspension Points

❖ Treat as a three-letter word with a space before and after. (AP Style)

❖ Chicago uses three “spaced periods.”

Ellipsis at the end of a sentence

❖ Use regular punctuation, then a space, then the ellipsis.

“I held that simple note with one Bible verse scribbled on the front as the tears of honest need streamed down my cheeks. … My Bible friend had reached me.” Lysa TerKeurst