[Main] [Grammar Glossary] [Common Mistakes]

Periods (.) — end sentences and are used in ellipses (see ellipsis).

Commas (,) — organize sentences into orderly parts and denote pauses.

Exclamation marks (!) — used for startling or drastic speech. Go easy on exclamation marks. They should rarely, if ever, be used in academic writing.

Question marks (?) — used at the end of a sentence to denote a question.

Hyphens (-) — used to join words together and to make new ones.

Dashes (–) — two hyphens typed simultaneously (sometimes --) used to interrupt a sentence and insert another thought. One can act like a colon, two can act like parentheses. Often used in research papers when parentheses are reserved for citing sources.

Colons (:) — used to introduce a statement, a series of things, a quotation, or instruction.

Semicolons (;) — used between clauses in a sentence and between complex items in a series.

Parentheses (()) — used to enclose an aside – either whole sentences or words within a sentence.

NOTE: Punctuation almost always follows a parenthesis.

The dog (whom I loved), died last winter.

Studies show that the women lived longer (Smith 89).

An exception is when an entire sentence is enclosed within parentheses.

(They never saw it coming.)

Brackets ([]) — used in quoted material or excerpts to enclose something that’s not part of the original, like an explanatory aside. Also used within a parenthetical quote.

"My weight [145 pounds] is a well-kept secret."

The dogs (that normally ate outside [weather-permitting]) came in.

Quote or Quotation marks ("") — used to surround a quotation.

"My sister went swimming," John said.

John said, "My sister went swimming."

Common mistakes, from Woe Is I by Patricia O’Conner.