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.

Summary of Punctuation Marks

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	hyphen	This is a rather out-of-date book.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	"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 Bagkok (my favourite city) and stayed there for two weeks.
	square brackets	The newspaper reported that the hostages [most of them French] had been released.
	curly brackets or braces	{ b := a + 1 RESULTIS b }
	ellipsis	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 styles between, for example, British and American English, some publishers and some writers.