PUNCTUATION IN WRITING Chanokpat Sakunsansern No.1 M.4/1
PUNCTUATION IN WRITING Chanokpat Sakunsansern No.1 M.4/1
Basic Signs of Punctuation
• the full stop .
• the comma ,
• the exclamation mark !
• the question mark ?
• the semi-colon ;
• the colon :
• the apostrophe '
• quotation marks “ ”
• the hyphen -
• brackets ( ) or [ ]
• the slash /
Full Stop (.)
End a sentence
• Ex: I am a girl. He is a boy.
Indicate abbreviation
• Ex: Sun. Sunday
Note:
? and ! replace and eliminate periods at the end of a
sentence.
• Ex: Are you okay?. O Are you okay? P
Abbreviation that ends in a period - do not follow it with
another period.
• Ex: This is Alice Smith, M.D.. O This is Alice Smith, M.D. P
The Comma (,)
To pause before proceeding.
Add a phrase that does not contain any new subject.
Separate words in a series of 3 or more items/adjectives.
Separate two adjectives when the adjectives are
interchangeable.
• Ex: He is a strong, healthy man. P
OR healthy, strong man.
• Ex: We stayed at an expensive summer resort.
summer expensive resort. wrong O
Separate larger area from a smaller one. • Ex: Bkk, Thailand
Can’t switch
summer & expensive
Note:
Oxford comma - last comma that comes before and/or.
• Ex: My family consists of my dad, my mom, and my sister.
**Sometimes we need Oxford comma
• Ex: We had coffee, cheese and crackers and grapes.
We had coffee, cheese and crackers, and grapes.
omission of the Oxford comma can sometimes lead to
misunderstandings.
writer has to choose whether they will use or not.
The comma tells us that
cheese and crackers
= one dish.
Exclamation Mark (!) Denote excitement, emphasis, strong feeling
• Only use when essential or when taken from a direct quote.
• Don’t use too many “!” in formal writing.
Question Mark (?) Indicates that a sentence is asking a question.
• Ex: What’s your name?
Note: you do not need a full stop.
Semi-colon (;)
Join 2 connected sentences.
• Ex: We set out at dawn; the weather looked promising.
Note: if the clauses are very long, use a full stop
Separate a complex series of items.
• The conference was attended by delegates from Paris, France;
Paris, Texas; London, UK; Stockholm, Sweden; Colombo, Sri
Lanka; and Mumbai, India.
• I went to the show with Jake, my close friend; his friend, Jane; and
her best friend, Jenna.
Colon (:)
Makes a very pointed pause between two phrases
Commonly used when listing.
• Ex: I bought many things for the party: beer, fruit, vegetables, toilet
rolls, cereals and cartons of milk.
Use in a heading or separate parts of a title
• Ex: Human Resource Management: Guidelines for Telephone
Advisers
• My favorite movie is The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the
Ring
Apostrophe (’)
Indicates possession.
• Ex: The girl’s hat was green, (girl is in the singular).
Note:
subject ending with ‘s’ drop the final ‘s’
• Ex: The Jones’s house…The Jones’ house
subject is plural apostrophe is placed after the s
• The teachers’ staff room
if the word is already plural
• Ex: children children’s
Indicate contraction
• Ex: We're going to do this course. (We are going to do this course.)
Note: abbreviated words in formal writing is inappropriate
Tips!
• It’s = a contraction of two words: it + is // it + has.
• Its = a possessive like hers, his, and whose.
• There’s = a contraction of there + is.
• Theirs = the third person plural possessive pronoun
Quotation or Speech Marks “…”
To mark out speech
When quoting someone else's speech
Note:
• Use a single quotation mark within a regular quotation to
indicate a quotation within a quotation
• Ex: Ali said, "Anna told me, ’I wasn't sure if you wanted to come!’ "
Hyphen ( - )
Link words together.
• a prefix pre-test
• compound words up-to-date
• writing numbers out as words fifty-two
When a word is split between two lines.
(The hyphen should be placed at the end of the upper line)
• Note: use extra spacing to avoid hyphenation is better
Dash ("--" or "—")
Making a brief interruption within a statement
To convey a sudden change of thought or additional
comment
Structure:
Independent clause—thought—independent clause.
Independent clause—thought.
• Ex: Abby gave me a terrible haircut—and she expected a tip!
Use to indicate interrupted speech.
• Ex: "But I—But you said— ... wait, what?" stammered Edna
more emphasis than a comma but less than parentheses.
Note:
When you remove the dashes, the sentence should
still make sense.
Ex: The man—he was from Ames, Iowa—arrived
The man from Ames, Iowa, arrived.
Wrong usage: My friend—Sam—went to the doctor.
My friend, Sam, went to the doctor.
Need to use commas
Parentheses (…)
Use to make an aside, or a point which is not part of the
main flow of a sentence
*If you remove the words between the brackets, the sentence should
still make sense.
Personal comments.
Denote an afterthought
• Ex: You will need a flashlight for the camping trip (don't forget the
batteries!).
Note: include the sentence's period after the closing parenthesis
comma < dash < parentheses
Brackets […]
To correct the tense of a quotation to suit the tense of
your own sentence
To add your own words to sections of an abbreviated
quotation.
• "[The blast] was absolutely devastating!” said Susan Smith, a local
bystander at the scene of the incident.
*original quote : "It was absolutely devastating!"
To abbreviate lengthy quotations
• “We can define class as a large-scale grouping of people who share
common economic resources, that strongly influence the types of
lifestyle they are able to lead. Ownership of wealth, together with
occupation, are the chief basis of class differences. The major
classes that exist in Western societies are an upper class […]; a
middle class […] and a working class […].”
(Giddens, 1997, p.243)
To adjust a quotation to suit your own sentence
• Ex: if you write about class structure, you might use the following:
• According to Giddens, (1997, p.243) the “[o]wnership of wealth,
together with occupation, are the chief basis of class differences”.
Braces {…}
To denote a numeric set in mathematics.
• Ex: The set of numbers in this problem is: { 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 }
Can also be used to indicate a set of choices.
*Mostly not use
• Ex: Choose your favorite utensil { fork, knife, spoon } and
bring it to me.
Slash ( / ) Use the slash instead of ”or, and” etc.,
URL of websites