LABORATORY 1 – PUNCTUATION RULES

Punctuation marks Rules and examples

Use full stops:

- at the end of a sentence
FULL I enjoy travelling abroad.
STOP/PERIOD - after initials and abbreviations
Try and relax the night before exams, e.g. listen to
music, cook a meal, etc.

Use commas:
- between items on a list
I like apples, pears and cherries.
- after a subordinate clause used at the beginning
of a sentence:
COMMA When you’ve finished, can you give me a hand?
- before and after words/phrases which interrupt a
sentence
There are, however, disadvantages in having your own
car.
Understandably, he was sympathetic to the poor
situation of the little girl.
- before/before and after a non-defining relative
clause
John and Bob, both friends of mine, are starting a
band.

Use colons:
- to introduce a list
COLON This is what we need: food, water and blankets.
- to introduce more details or an explanation
I’ve never liked flying: it makes me feel sick.

Use semi-colons:
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 - instead of a full stop, to separate main sentences
when their meaning is connected
I’ve never liked sailing; in fact, I actually hate it.
SEMI-COLON - between items on a list, especially where items
are long or not simple grammatically
There are three reasons for which I prefer travelling by
car to flying: I prefer to travel more slowly, the seats
on a plane are always too small; I enjoy seeing the
landscapes.

Use apostrophes:
APOSTROPHE - to show possession or ownership
This is my father’s study.
- to show that letters have been left out
He shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep.

Use dashes:
- in informal writing istead of commas, colons and
semi-colons
DASH I’ve got three complaints – the weather, the food and
the hotel services.
Finland – the land of a thousand lakes – is visited by a
lot of tourists every year.

Use question marks:

- at the end of a direct question, but not at the end
of an indirect or reported question
QUESTION MARK How many tablets do you take every week?
He didn’t know how many tablets I took every week.
- in requests
Could you bring me a glass of water?

Use exclamation marks:

- at the end of an emphatic declaration,
interjection, or command
They shouted at us, ’Do it now!’
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 - to end questions that are meant to convey
extreme emotions
EXCLAMATION What on earth were you thinking! Let a 4-year-child
MARK cross the street on his own!
- to emphasize a word within a sentence
We have some really (!) low-priced rugs on sale this
week.
- to accompany mimetically produced sounds
The bear went Grr!, and off I was.

Use hyphens:
- to create compound adjectives, particularly
modifiers before nouns
the well-known writer, his seven-year-old son, the out-
of-date telephone
- to write numbers and fractions
thirty-one, one-fifth, forty-nine
HYPHEN - to add certain prefixes to words (when the prefix
comes before a capitalized word, or the prefix is
capitalized)
non-English, U-formation
- with the prefixes self-, all-, and ex-
ex-husband, all-inclusive, self-control
- when the prefix ends with the same letter that
begins the word
anti-intellectual, de-emphasize

Use quotation marks:

QUOTATION - to quote direct speech
MARKS/ The first thing he said was, ”You’ve got to lose
INVERTED weight.”
COMMAS - around words we want to draw particular
attention to
I’ve never understood the word ’bland’.
- single quotation marks for the names of books,
films, etc.
Have you read ’Romeo and Juliet’ by W. Shakespeare?

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 Use capital letters:
- to start a sentence
London is the capital of England.
- for the names of places, people, nationalities, as
well as acronyms
John is American, not English.
- for days of the week, months of the year
We usually do our shopping on Saturday.
NATO is a political-military alliance.

Use slashes:
- to indicate a choice between the words it
separates (instead of or)
Using the pass/fail option backfired on her; she
SLASH could’ve gotten an A.
- to indicate a break between lines in quoted
poetry (with space)
”The woods are lovely, dark, and deep / but I have
promises to keep.”

Use ellipsis:
- when you’re quoting material and you want to
omit some words
The ceremony honored the twelve brilliant athletes …
visiting the U.S.
- to indicate a pause in the flow of a sentence, esp.
useful in quoted speech
ELLIPSIS Jim thought and thought … and then thought some
more.
’I’m wondering …’Jim said, confused.
- Inside square brackets to distinguish between an
ellipsis that you’ve added and the ellipsis that
might have been in the original text
”Bohr […]used the analogy of parallel stairways […]”

Use parentheses:
- to enclose information that clarifies or is used

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 as an aside
He finally answered (after taking five minutes to think)
that he did not understand the question.
- if material in parentheses ends a sentence, the
PARENTHESES period goes after the parentheses
He gave me a nice bonus ($500).
- commas are more likely to follow parentheses
than precede them
When he got home (it was already dark outside), he
fixed dinner.

Use brackets:
- to explain or comment within quoted material
Stan Brown, the new soccer coach [at West Point
Academy] is going to put a lot of strain on the cadets.
- when quoting something that has a spelling or
grammar mistake or presents material in a confusing
BRACKETS way, insert the term sic in italics and enclose it in non-
italic (unless the surrounding text is italic) brackets.
She wrote, “I would rather die then [sic] be seen
wearing the same outfit as my sister.” - [sic] indicates
that then was mistakenly used instead of than
- to include parenthetical information within
parenthetical material
Mr. Jones [my long-time neighbor] moved to another
city.

Check your spelling

English spelling is very irregular, so it is very easy to make mistakes. Improve

your spelling by:

- reading in English;
- using a dictionary to check the spelling of words;
- making a list of words that you often misspell.

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Sometimes there is a spelling rule that can help you. Look at the spelling rules for
the -ing and -ed forms.

Doubling the final consonant

The final consonant is doubled before -ing and -ed in:

1. verbs which have one syllable and end in consonant, short vowel, consonant
(stop – stopped, get – getting);

The rule is the same for comparative and superlative adjectives (big, bigger,
biggest).

2. verbs which have more than one syllable but have the stress on the last
syllable and end in consonant, vowel, consonant (permit – permitting; prefer
– preferred; occur – occurring);
Exception: kidnapped
3. in British English, verbs which end in -l after one vowel (cancel – cancelled;
travel - travelling).

Other changes include the following:

1. verbs which end in -e lose the final e when adding -ing (come – coming,
bite – biting);

Exception: age - ageing

2. verbs ending in -ie change the -ie to a -y before adding the -ing (die – dying;
lie – lying).

Check GB versus US English

GB English US English
labelled/labelling labeled/labeling
centre center
colour color
defence defense
monologue monolog
programme program
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organisation organization
specialise specialize