Complete english punctuation rules

The Farlex Grammar Book Volume II Complete English Punctuation Rules Perfect Your Punctuation and Instantly Improve Your Writing Explore more books by Farlex at FARLEX INTERNATIONAL FARLEX INTERNATIONAL LIMITED a Farlex Group Company • USA • Ireland farlex.com farlex.ie Copyright © 2017 by Farlex International All rights reserved Farlex supports copyright Copyright drives creativity and creates diverse and vibrant culture Thank you for purchasing an authorized copy of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing or distributing any part of this work without permission ISBN-10: 1537513907 ISBN-13: 978-1537513904 About the publisher Farlex is the publishing team behind TheFreeDictionary.com, the award-winning reference destination with 1 billion+ annual visits The most comprehensive reference resource online, The Free Dictionary is a massive, easily searchable collection of dictionaries and encyclopedias from the most trusted publishers, including McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, HarperCollins, and many more Since its founding in 2003, TheFreeDictionary.com has grown to include a vast and diverse amount of reference content, including multiple thesaurus sources and specialty dictionaries covering fields such as science, medicine, law, finance, idioms and slang, acronyms, computing, and more, as well as dictionaries in 14 other languages Farlex dictionary apps powered by The Free Dictionary have been downloaded tens of millions of times across multiple platforms, with top ratings after hundreds of thousands of user reviews With the three volumes of The Farlex Grammar Book (Complete English Grammar Rules, Complete English Punctuation Rules, and Complete English Spelling and Pronunciation Rules), Farlex brings its reputation for the most comprehensive, trusted, and easy-to-use reference products in the world to the most thorough English language guides available Complete English Punctuation Rules offers its readers unprecedented online integration Every punctuation quiz in the book can be accessed for free at TheGrammarBook.com For more books from Farlex, visit our Amazon page Preface Punctuation is essential to learning how to write Only when we master punctuation can we begin to perfect our writing More than a dozen unique punctuation marks are used in modern English, and each mark can change the structure and meaning of our chosen words in both drastic and subtle ways When we speak, we control this meaning by pausing or changing the inflection of our voice; when we write, however, the only way to convey this meaning is through the correct use of punctuation marks This guide covers all the ways punctuation shapes the English language as it is written today Because of how varied the usage of punctuation marks can be, it’s crucial to understand exactly how each mark can (or cannot) be used Each chapter in this guide focuses on a different punctuation mark, providing clear examples that show not only how to use it correctly, but how to identify and avoid common mistakes as well Since many punctuation marks overlap with one another in how they are used, this book contains many cross-references to make it clear when and why one mark might be preferable over another Once you have mastered the basic rules of punctuation, your writing will become much clearer, better structured, and more precise You’ll be able to add more nuance and variety to your writing without worrying about whether you’re using the correct punctuation With this guide, you will have no doubt Editor’s Note This book is written according to the standard styles and spellings used in American English While major differences between American and British English are usually addressed, some information in the book might not coincide with the styles, tendencies, or preferences of other English-speaking communities Table of Contents About the publisher Preface Editor’s Note English Punctuation Periods Exclamation Points Question Marks Commas Semicolons Colons Hyphens Dashes Slashes Apostrophes Parentheses Brackets Quotation Marks Ellipses Other Signs and Symbols Quiz answers Index Thank You More from Farlex English Punctuation Punctuation refers to the specific markings, signs and symbols that are used in and around sentences to give them structure and to allow for correct understanding and comprehension Providing structure If we think of words as bricks that build a sentence (arranged in a certain pattern according to English grammar), punctuation could be thought of as the mortar that holds the bricks together Without punctuation, our writing would just be a continuous stream of words that lacked structure, pacing, and, ultimately, meaning For instance, let’s see how this same paragraph would look without any punctuation: if we think of words as bricks that build a sentence arranged in a certain pattern according to English grammar punctuation could be thought of as the mortar that holds the bricks together without punctuation our writing would just be a continuous stream of words that lacked structure pacing and ultimately meaning for instance lets see how this same paragraph would look without any punctuation While it’s possible to discern some of the meaning, it becomes remarkably difficult to understand what is being said when no punctuation marks are used Providing internal meaning In addition to providing overall structure and clarity to sentences, punctuation can also provide nuanced internal meaning as well; that is, sentences that have the exact same words can have different meanings depending on which punctuation is used (or misused) Let’s look at some sets of examples that illustrate this idea: “Brackets are also used to distinguish parenthetical information that appears within a larger set of parentheses (Informally, though, it is quite common to simply use a second set of parentheses.)” “Brackets are also used to distinguish parenthetical information that appears within a larger set of parentheses (Informally, though; it is quite common to simply use a second set of parentheses.)” Here, by changing the second comma after though to a semicolon, we’ve changed what informally refers to: In the first example, it is referring to the use of a second set of parentheses as being informal; in the second example, it is the use of brackets that is now being described as informal Now let’s look at two examples involving more complex punctuation changes: “If we look at our sales team’s report, an increase in consumer confidence, an upturn for our July figures, and successful budget cuts indicate a very promising second half of the year.” “If we look at our sales, teams report an increase in consumer confidence— an upturn for our July figures—and successful budget cuts indicate a very promising second half of the year.” The second sentence’s meaning is now different from that of the first in three ways: 1) By placing a comma after sales and removing the apostrophe from team’s, the information is no longer a part of the sales team’s report Instead, teams becomes the subject of the verb report, of which an increase in consumer confidence is the direct object 2) By placing em dashes around an upturn for our July figures, it changes the information from being part of a list to instead describing an increase in consumer confidence 3) Finally, because of these changes, successful budget cuts is now not a