Lesson Twenty-five

Punctuation

The type of punctuation you choose is dependent on the type of sentence of question you create. There are some rules for punctuation that you can learn and remember; however, to use punctuation properly requires a good knowledge of English grammar and sentence structure.

A period ends a sentence.

.

A question mark goes at the end of a question.

  • What are you doing today?

?

A comma separates parts of a sentence.

  • After the class ended, we went to work.

,

An exclamation mark shows emphasis. Something is really important!

!

An apostrophe is used for making contractions and forming possessive nouns.

  • We’re = We are
  • Let’s go over to John’s house. (Let’s = Let us / John’s = singular possessive)
  • Those are the girls’ instruments. (girls’ = plural possessive)
  • Who’s at the door? (Who’s = Who is)

Quotation marks indicate the exact words that a person says.

  • "It’s time to find a new car," my wife said.

"

A semicolon separates clauses within a sentence.

  • Most of the students were happy about the results on their test; the others were disappointed.
;

A colon is used to list things.

  • There are three things you must remember: never give up on yourself, always do your best work, and respect those who have come before you.
:

A hyphen is placed between two words when they function as an adjective.

  • They live in a four-bedroom apartment.
A long dash separates elements in a sentence.
A slash is used to separate things in a sentence. It’s also used in web addresses.
/
Parentheses enclose words or sentences that are added to a sentence.
(  )

An "at" sign is used with email addresses.

[email protected]

@

An ampersand is used for the conjunction "and."

  • She works for Johnson & Johnson.
&
An asterisk draws the attention of the reader to something else on a page. *
*

A pound sign is used to represent the word "number."

  • You’ll need a #2 pencil for the test.
#

A dollar sign represents money.

  • The repair will cost $452.78
$

A plus sign is used when doing addition.

  • 2 + 2 = 4
+

 * The asterisk drew your attention to the bottom of the page.

 

Next: Lesson Twenty-six

Sentence Patterns