Punctuation

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".

The Value of Punctuation
An English teacher wrote these words on the board:

woman without her man is nothing

The teacher then asked the students to punctuate the words correctly. The men wrote the top line. The women wrote the bottom line.

Punctuation Blues - a fun song about punctuation

Summary of Punctuation Marks

Click on the link for each punctuation mark to find out more.

Punctuation Mark	Name	Example
	full stop or 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	hyphen	This is a rather out-of-date book.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 exclamation point (AmE)	"Help!" she cried. "I'm drowning!"
	slash, forward slash or oblique	Please press your browser's Refresh/Reload button.
	backslash	C:\Users\Files\jse.doc
	double quotation marks	"I love you," she said.
	single quotation marks	'I love you,' she said.
	apostrophe	This is John's car.
	underline	Have you read War and Peace?
	underscore	bin_lad@cia.gov
	round brackets	I went to Bangkok (my favourite city) and stayed there for two weeks.
	square brackets	The newspaper reported that the hostages [most of them French] had been released.
	ellipsis mark	One happy customer wrote: "This is the best program...that I have ever seen."

Although there are general rules for English punctuation, there are differences of style between, for example, British and American English, some publishers and some writers. Anyone seeking guidance at an advanced level is recommended to consult a style guide (often included in good dictionaries) for their particular variety of English or editorial style.