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35 views4 pages

Punctuation

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pujolmarinaines
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Appendix 2

RULES FOR PUNCTUATION

CAPITAL LETTERS
A capital letter is used:

• to begin a sentence.
e.g. There’s a great film playing at the cinema.

• for days of the week, months and public holidays.


e.g. This year, Christmas Day falls on the last Sunday of December.

• for names of people and places.


e.g. My best friend’s name is Claire and she’s from Cardiff, Wales.

• for people’s titles.


e.g. Mr. and Mrs. Graham; Dr. Stevens, Professor Brown; etc.

• for nationalities and languages.


e.g. They are French.
We love Italian cuisine.
He is fluent in Portuguese and German.

• For the first word and/or the most important words (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives
and adverbs) of titles of books, films, plays, TV programmes, etc.
e.g. Finding Nemo
Alice in Wonderland
Note: the personal pronoun “I” is always a capital letter.

COMMA (,)
A comma is used:

• to separate words in a list.


e.g. We need water, fish, meat and vegetables

• to separate phrases or clauses.


e.g. He stopped walking, looked down and realised that he had lost his wallet.

• to separate long sentences linked by “and”, “but”, “so”.


e.g. He said he loved me, but he didn’t mean it.
She brought a lot of delicious sandwiches, and Peter brought some great wine.

• to introduce a non-defining relative clause. (A clause which adds extra information,


but it is not necessary to make sense of the sentence)
e.g. Maria, who is a ballerina, lives in Paris.

An Essential Guide to Writing


Prof. Gianna Guastella
• after certain linking words/ phrases.
e.g. In addition, …; For example,…; However,…; In conclusion,….
• When an “if clause” starts the sentence.
e.g. If I had known, I wouldn’t have called you.

before and/ or after expressions such as “she said”, “he said”, “said Tom/ Mary”
when reporting someone’s exact words.
e.g. Opening the door, he said, “Wake up kids”.
BUT: “I am exhausted,” said the teacher.

• to separate a question tag from the rest of the sentence:


e.g. He likes water, doesn’t he?

FULL STOP (.)


A full stop is used:

• to end a sentence that is not a question or an exclamation.


e.g. I’m having a wonderful time. There’s so much to do here.

ITALICS
Italics are used:

• to show the titles of books, plays, newspapers, films, etc.


e.g. Romeo and Juliet
The Daily Mail

• to show names of hotels, restaurants, etc.


e.g. The Majestic Hotel

QUESTION MARKS (?)


Question marks are used

• to end a direct question.


e.g. Are you coming to the party?
Note: a question mark is not used when we ask an indirect question.
e.g. He asked me how old I was.

An Essential Guide to Writing


Prof. Gianna Guastella
EXCLAMATION MARKS (!)
An exclamation mark is used:

• to end an exclamatory sentence, i.e. a sentence showing admiration, surprise, joy,


anger, etc.
e.g. What a beautiful baby!

QUOTATION MARK (“”)


A quotation mark is used;

• in direct speech to report the exact words someone said.


e.g. “Come with me and I’ll give you the book,” he said

• for quotations (something you read in a book, sayings and proverbs)


e.g. As my father used to say “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”.

COLON (:)
A colon is used:

• to introduce a list.
e.g. There were four of us on the boat: my mother, my father, my brother and me.

SEMICOLON (;)
A semicolon is used:

• instead of a full stop, sometimes to separate main sentences where their meaning
is connected. Semicolons are not used as often as full stops or commas.
e.g. Some teenagers find it extremely hard to choose a career; others consider it
a fairly easy task.

APOSTROPHE (‘)
An apostrophe is used:

• in contracted forms.
e.g. I’m an English teacher.

• before or after the possessive “-s”


e.g. My teacher’s booklet.
My cousins’ dog.

An Essential Guide to Writing


Prof. Gianna Guastella
• to form the plurals of letters, numbers or abbreviations.
e.g. I was born in the 90’s
UNICEF’s efforts to control the situation in Venezuela were useless.
She often writes j’s instead of g’s

HYPHEN (-)
A hyphen is used:

• to form a compound word.


e.g. kind-hearted; ten-year-old girl

DOTS (...)
Three dots are used to show that words have been left out from a proverb, a saying,
proverb, sentence, etc.

e.g. As Edward Guthman once said, “Thirty seconds on the evening news is worth a front
page headline...”

DASH (—)
A dash is used:

• in informal English, in the same way as a colon or semicolon.


e.g. There are many things I couldn’t imagine living without — my family, my
friends, my dog and my computer.

• To introduce something that you though of or added later. Something surprising,


unexpected, etc.
e.g. They’re closing down the old library — at least that’s what I’ve heard.

BRACKETS ()
Brackets are used:

• to separate extra information from the rest of the sentence.


e.g. These days, you can buy popular newspapers (for example Le Monde, The
Daily Mail, etc.) almost anywhere in the world.

An Essential Guide to Writing


Prof. Gianna Guastella

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