Punctuation
British English American English
The " . " symbol is called a full stop a period
The " ! " symbol is called an exclamation mark an exclamation point
The " ( ) " symbols are called brackets parentheses
The " [ ] " symbols are called square brackets brackets
The position of quotation Joy means Joy means
marks "happiness". "happiness."
The punctuation for Dr, Mr, Mrs, St, Rd, Dr., Mr., Mrs., St., Rd.,
abbreviations Ct Ct.
1. The period (.) is usually used to end simple declarative sentences. In most
cases, they complete statements that do not carry any special emotional
meaning and do not infer a question. He loves playing baseball.
2. A question mark (?) usually indicates a direct question and is also placed at
the end of a sentence. Does he love playing baseball?
3. The exclamation point (!) is used to showcase an emotion or to add special
emphasis. He loves playing baseball so much!
4. The comma is used to separate logical parts of a sentence. It includes ideas or
elements that are inside the structure of a sentence. A comma can also be
used to separate repetitive parts of a sentence, such as numbers, dates, or
objects that are similar to each other. A comma is also used after a greeting
and the end of a letter, before and after mentioning someone's name.
To separate logical parts of a sentence: When he came home, the sun was
shining.
To separate repetitive parts: I love movies such as “Pretty Woman”, “When
Harry met Sally”, and “You've got mail”.
To indicate a salutation: Thanks for all your help, Mark.
5. A semicolon (;) connects extra independent parts of a sentence. If you put a
period between them, the sentence will still work. This will not be the case
with a comma, where clauses depend on each other.
Sylvia was happy; she knew that he would fall in love with her pretty soon.
As you can see, these two sentences can be easily separated.
6. A colon (:) can be used in three cases.
When you introduce a quotation, an explanation, an example, or a
series It was up to her to take the following actions: graduate, find a
job, and become a partner at her law firm.
You can put a colon between independent clauses. It's like the case with
a semicolon, but here the second part of the sentence explains the first.
I didn't want to go to Brazil: I already had plans to go to Italy with
my husband.
For emphasis when you want to single out one particular part of your
sentence She was sure of one thing: her friends.
7. A dash is used to separate words into statements, and also to indicate range
or connections. She said explicitly — Yes!
8. A hyphen is used to join two or more words together into a single concept.
This way we get a compound term. I went on a Rome-Paris flight.
9. Brackets ([ ]) are notations which are mostly used for technical explanations,
or to clarify meaning.
The important part about brackets is that if you remove the information in the
brackets, the sentence will still make sense. He [John] was the first one to
graduate in the family.
10. Braces ({ }) look similar but they are mostly used in Math and computer
programming to show units. 2{1+[23-3]}=x.
11. Parentheses ( ( ) ) are curved notations which are used to showcase thoughts
or qualifying remarks.
An important point about parentheses is that they can be replaced by commas
without changing the meaning—in most cases.
Mary Stuart (whose maiden name was Lockhart) went to buy a bottle of
milk.
12. An apostrophe (') is mostly used when: there is an omission of a letter or
letters from a word, in the possessive case, or for plurals of lowercase letters.
Omission of letters: I've wanted to do it for a long time.
Possessive case: Kate's dog is a Golden retriever.
Plural for lowercase letters: There are 3 p’s in the word “hippopotamus”.
13. Quotation marks (" ") are primarily used to quote the words of another
person. “Everything happens for a reason,” she said.
14. Coordinating Conjunctions He was tired. So, he left early. / I am a student,
and I have a part-time job too.
15. Adverbial Conjunctions
She was worried; however, she tried to keep calm.
She was worried, however, she tried to keep calm.
She was worried. However, she tried to keep calm.
