Lesson Twenty-five

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 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.

An "at" sign is used with email addresses.

[email protected]

An ampersand is used for the conjunction "and."

• She works for Johnson & Johnson.

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