punctuation

• Derived from the Latin punctum, a point, means the right use of
putting in Points or Stops in writing. The following are the principal
stops:-
(1) Full Stop or Period (.)
(2) Question Mark (?) End Punctuation Marks
(3) Exclamation Mark (!)

(4) Comma (,)

(5) Semicolon (;)
(6) Colon (:) Non-End Punctuation Marks
(7) The Dash

(8)Brackets ( )
(9) Inverted Commas (“ ”) Enclosing Punctuation
Marks
Or Quotation Marks
(10) The Apostrophe ( ’ )
(11) The Hyphen (-) Punctuation Marks Used within
Word
(12) The Abbreviation Dot
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Why should you use punctuation in your writing? The simple
answer is that it helps your reader – who is possibly also your
marker - to understand your message easily. When you speak,
you frequently pause, your voice rises or drops and often your
face and hands add non-verbal information through “body
language”; all this assists in communicating your message
clearly. In writing you have to remember that the readers have
only what is on the paper or screen in order to understand your
message. Punctuation basically helps to indicate the pauses,
rises and falls etc. which are important for understanding.
 The Full Stop
• It is the most important punctuation mark.
• It is used at the end of all sentences except
direct questions or exclamations.
• You should use full stop frequently, and beware of
prolonging your sentence by using commas where
a new sentence should be started.
• Do not link two complete sentences with only a
comma or run two sentences together without any
punctuation.
 Our house is in Mansour, it is very beautiful.
Our house is in Mansour. It is very beautiful.
 Think what you like I don’t care.
Think what you like. I don’t care.
• You must not put a full stop until you have reached the end of
the sentence: no full stop, therefore, is possible until the main
finite verb has been written.
• Do not punctuate a phrase or a subordinate clause as you
would punctuate a sentence.
 I enjoy reading a few types of novels. Like science fiction.
 I enjoy reading a few types of novels, like science fiction.
 When the children arrived at the camp. Some were dancing for
joy and others were weeping.
 When the children arrived at the camp, some were dancing for
joy and others were weeping.
 I was trying to read the directions. Which were confusing and
absurd.
 I was trying to read the directions, which were confusing and
absurd.
• Before handing in a composition, test
each sentence for completeness by
making sure:
1. That it has at least one subject and one
predicate.
2. That the subject and predicate are not
introduced by a subordinating
conjunction or by relative pronoun and
finite verb.
 The question mark?
A. It has the same force as the full stop in marking
the end of a sentence. It is used at the end of a
direct question, e.g.
“where are you going?” He asked.
Has he arrived at the office yet?
• How did this happen?
• Where is the Language Learning Centre?
B. Do not use a question mark with an indirect
question.
An indirect question is really statement about a
question and therefore ends with a full stop, e.g.
He asked us where we were going.
C. The question mark may be used to indicate
doubt.
He was born in 1900(?) and died in 1980.
 The exclamation mark !
It is used after exclamations or exclamatory sentence ( it
indicated an expression of emotion such as surprise, anger,
delight or loud speech etc.)
• It’s just amazing! Hurry up!
• How happy everyone would be if there were no pain!
• What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason!
• BUT since academic writing should be impersonal and
objective, not emotional, you will not be likely to use
exclamation marks in your academic work.
• Use comma after mild interjections and end mild exclamatory
sentences with a period. The writer who tries to stress
everything really emphasises nothing. If you want to express
strong emotion or excitement try to do it through your choice
of words.
• Note that the question mark and the exclamation mark
both contain a dot under them (?!). It is therefore
incorrect to write a full stop, colon-semi colon, or
comma after ? or !
• Study the use of the full stop, question marks, and
exclamation marks in the following passage:
In every fire – station, there are always some
firemen who are ready to go out if they are needed to
fight a fire.
One night, the telephone bell in a certain fire – station
rang. One of the firemen picked up the telephone and
said, “ Fire- station. Can I help you”!
A very excited voice at the end answered, “ Fire, fire”!
“Where is it”? asked the fireman.
“In my house”! came the excited answer.
“Come quickly, or it will be burnt down”!
“But in what place is the fire”? asked the fireman.
• “In the kitchen”! answered the excited
voice.
• “Yes, but how can we get to your
place”? the fireman continued patiently.
• “Haven’t you got a fire- engine to come
in”? was the surprised answer.
 Comma (,)
• A comma marks a slight break between different parts of
a sentence. Used properly, commas make the meaning
of sentences clear by grouping and separating words,
phrases, and clauses. Many people are uncertain about
the use of commas, though, and often sprinkle them
throughout their writing without knowing the basic rules.
As a general rule, a comma should be used whenever a
slight pause is to be made.
• Here are the main cases when you need to use a
comma:
1. in lists
2. in direct speech
3. to separate clauses
4. to mark off certain parts of a sentence
5. with 'however'
 Using commas in lists
• To separate the items in an enumeration. put a comma
between the different items in a list, as in the following
sentences:
• Saturday morning started with a hearty breakfast of scrambled
eggs, bacon, sausage, and French toast.
• The school has a vegetable garden in which the children grow
cabbages, onions, potatoes, and carrots.
• The final comma in these lists (before the word ‘and’) is known
as the ‘serial comma’. Not all writers or publishers use it, but it
is used by Oxford Dictionaries – some people refer to it as ‘the
Oxford comma’. Using it can make your meaning clearer. Take
a look at this sentence:
• My favourite sandwiches are chicken, bacon and ham and
cheese.
• It isn’t entirely clear from this sentence whether the writer is
listing three or four of their favourite sandwich fillings: is ‘ham’
one of their favourites and ‘cheese’ another, or is it ‘ham and
cheese’ that they like? Adding an Oxford comma makes the
meaning clear:
• My favourite sandwiches are chicken, bacon, and ham and
cheese.
• We arrived, looked round, and were thoroughly disgusted.
• The air was raw, dark, and grey.
• We can go to Baghdad by rail, by road, or by air.
 Using commas in direct speech
• When a writer quotes a speaker’s words exactly as
they were spoken, this is known as direct speech.
If the piece of direct speech comes after the
information about who is speaking, you need to
use a comma to introduce the direct speech. The
comma comes before the first quotation mark.
Note that the final quotation mark follows the full
stop at the end of the direct speech:
• Steve replied, ‘No problem.’
• You also need to use a comma at the end of a
piece of direct speech, if the speech comes before
the information about who is speaking. In this
case, the comma goes inside the quotation mark:
• ‘I don’t agree,’ I replied.
• ‘Here we are,' they said.
• There are two exceptions to this rule. If a piece of direct
speech takes the form of a question or an exclamation, you
should end it with a question mark or an exclamation mark,
rather than a comma:
• ‘Stop him!’ she shouted.
• ‘Did you see that?’ he asked.
• Direct speech is often broken up by the information about
who is speaking. In these cases, you need a comma to end
the first piece of speech (inside the quotation mark) and
another comma before the second piece (before the
quotation mark):
• ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I always keep my promises.’
• ‘Thinking back,’ she added, ‘I didn’t expect to win.’
 Using commas to separate clauses
• Commas are used to separate clauses in a complex sentence (i.e. a
sentence which is made up of a main clause and one or
more subordinate clauses).
• The following examples show the use of commas in two complex
sentences:
• Having had lunch, we went back to work.
• [subordinate clause] [main clause]
• I first saw her in Paris, where I lived in the early nineties.
• [main clause] [subordinate clause]
• If the commas were removed, these sentences wouldn’t be as clear
but the meaning would still be the same. There are different types
of subordinate clause, though, and in some types the use of commas
can be very important.
• A subordinate clause beginning with ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘that’, ‘whom’, or
‘where’ is known as a relative clause. Take a look at this example:
• Passengers who have young children may board the aircraft first.
[relative clause]
• This sentence contains what’s known as a ‘restrictive
relative clause’. Basically, a restrictive relative clause
contains information that’s essential to the meaning
of the sentence as a whole. If you left it out, the
sentence wouldn’t make much sense. If we removed
the relative clause from the example above, then the
whole point of that sentence would be lost and we’d
be left with the rather puzzling statement:
• Passengers may board the aircraft first.
• There is the car which I sold yesterday. (This is
restricted to the one particular car I sold yesterday).
• You should not put commas round a restrictive
relative clause.
• Note that single noun-clauses are not separated by a comma from
the main statement:
• No one knows when he will come. (Here it would be wrong to use a
comma, since the noun-clause is the object of the verb “knows”).

• The other type of subordinate clause beginning with ‘who’, ‘which’,

‘whom’, etc. is known as a ‘non-restrictive relative clause’. A non-
restrictive relative clause contains information that is not essential to
the overall meaning of a sentence. Take a look at the following
example:
• Mary, who has two young children, has a part-time job in the library.
[relative clause]
• If you remove this clause, the meaning of the sentence isn’t affected
and it still makes perfect sense. All that’s happened is that we’ve
lost a bit of extra information about Mary:
• Mary has a part-time job in the library.
• When the adjective defines or restricts the reference
commas should not be used:
• There is the car which I sold yesterday.
(this is restricted to the one particular car I sold
yesterday).
• You need to put a comma both before and after a non-
restrictive relative clause.
• My father, who is an old sailor, often tells me stories
about the sea.
• “Who is an old sailor” does not restrict the
reference. The clause merely describes and is not
subordinate to but co-ordinate with the clause it goes
with.
• CommasUsingarecommas to mark a
used to separate offpart
parts
of aofsentence
a sentence
that is an
optional ‘aside’ and not part of the main statement.
• Gunpowder is not, of course, a chemical compound.
• His latest film, Calypso Dreams, opens next month.
• In these sentences, the role of the commas is similar to their
function in non-restrictive relative clauses: they mark off
information that isn’t essential to the overall meaning. Using
commas in this way can really help to clarify the meaning of a
sentence. Take a look at this example:
• Cynthia’s daughter, Sarah, is a midwife.
• The writer’s use of commas tells us that Cynthia has only one
daughter. If you removed Sarah’s name from the sentence,
there would still be no doubt as to who was the midwife:
• Cynthia’s daughter is a midwife.
• If you rewrite the original sentence without commas its meaning
changes:
• Cynthia’s daughter Sarah is a midwife.
• The lack of commas tells us that the name ‘Sarah’ is crucial to
the understanding of the sentence. It shows that Cynthia has
more than one daughter, and so the name of the one who is a
midwife needs to be specified for the meaning to be clear.
• If you aren’t sure whether you’ve used a pair of commas
correctly, try replacing them with brackets or removing the
information enclosed by the commas altogether, and then see if
the sentence is still understandable, or if it still conveys the
meaning you intended.
 Using a comma with 'however'
• You should use a comma after 'however' when however means
'by contrast' or 'on the other hand':
• However, a good deal of discretion is left in the hands of area
managers.
• Don't use a comma after however when it means 'in whatever
way':
• However you look at it, existing investors are likely to lose out.
• To mark off words and phrases like however, indeed, therefore,
too, for instance, no doubt, in fact, of course when they are
used as asides or interpolations:
• This proved, however, to be a mistake.
• He was, in fact, the best student in the class.
• I noticed, too, that he was very popular with his classmates.
• He realised, of course, that I was angry.
 In complex sentences
• To separate”
1. An adverb clause from a following clause
Although it was already getting dark, Tom set out through the
forest.
2. Two or more noun-clauses :
No one knows when he will come, or whether he will come at all,
or whether he is even alive.
There are three common errors in the use of the comma:
1. The use of comma to separate a subject from its verb.
2. The use of comma to separate a verb from its object.
3. The use of comma to separate a defining, or restrictive,
relative clause from its antecedent.
 Semicolon (;)
• main task of the semicolon is to mark a break that is stronger
than a comma but not as final as a full stop. It should be used
when you want the reader to see that the thoughts contained in
two independent clauses are closely related. In another words,
It’s used between two main clauses that balance each other
and are too closely linked to be made into separate sentences,
as in these two examples:
• The road runs through a beautiful wooded valley; the railway
line follows it.
• An art director searched North Africa; I went to the Canary
Islands.
• You can also use a semicolon as a stronger division in a
sentence that already contains commas:
• The study showed the following: 76% of surveyed firms
monitor employee Web-surfing activities, with 65% blocking
access to unauthorized Internet locations; over one-third of
the firms monitor employee computer keystrokes; half
reported storing and reviewing employee emails; 57%
monitor employee telephone behaviour, including the
inappropriate use of voicemail. (linking mark , it can show
that a number of short sentences are linked in meaning).

• The professor asked the students to close the door of the

classroom; there was too much noise out in the hall.
• I walked up behind Ali as quickly as I could; however he still
heard me.
• We arrived late for the party; in fact, we were so late that
everyone had left by the time we go there.
 The Colon (:)
• The colon marks a longer pause than the semicolon or coma.
The main uses of the colon are:
A-To stand for “as follows”
Lyric poetry includes various types: the ode, the elegy, the
sonnet, and the song.
B- To prepare the reader for a second thought contrasting or
balanced with the first part of the sentence.
Speech is silver: silence is golden.
 The price includes the following: travel to London, flight to
Venice, hotel accommodation, and excursions.(to introduce a
list)
 The job calls for skills in the following areas: proofing, editing,
and database administration.
• between two main clauses in cases where the
second clause explains or follows from the first:
1. That is the secret of my extraordinary life: always do
the unexpected.
2. It wasn’t easy: to begin with, I had to find the right
house.
• before a quotation, and sometimes before direct
speech:
1. The headline read: ‘Taxi Driver Battles Gangsters’.
2. They shouted: ‘Our families are starving! We need
land!’
 The Dash(-)
• It is used to show that a sentence is broken off in
the middle. If you persist in following up the matter -
but what is the use of my speaking?
• The sentence may be broken off in order to expand
or to add an explanation of what has been said.
This machine is very easy to manipulate – you merely
press the lever and turn the handle.
• When a pair of dashes is used to separate parts of
sentence:
Schooldays – or so we are told – are the happiest
days of our lives.
• A dash is used:
• in pairs, to mark off information or ideas that
are not essential to an understanding of the
rest of the sentence:
 Thousands of children – like the girl in this
photograph – have been left homeless.
 My son – where has he gone? – would like
to meet you.

• to show other kinds of break in a sentence

where a comma, semicolon, or colon would
be traditionally used:
 Brackets ( ) { }
• There are two main types of brackets:
• Round brackets ( )
• Round brackets (also called parentheses) are mainly used to
separate off information that isn’t essential to the meaning of
the rest of the sentence. If you removed the bracketed material
the sentence would still make perfectly good sense. For
example:
 Mount Everest (8,848 m) is the highest mountain in the world.
 There are several books on the subject (see page 120).
 He coined the term ‘hypnotism’ (from the Greek
word hypnos meaning 'sleep') and practised it frequently.
 They can also be used to enclose a comment by the person
writing:
 He’d clearly had too much to drink (not that I blamed him).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Square brackets: [ ]
• Square brackets are mainly used to enclose words added by
someone other than the original writer or speaker, typically in
order to clarify the situation:
• 1. He [the police officer] can’t prove they did it.
• If round or square brackets are used at the end of a sentence, the
full stop should be placed outside the closing bracket:
2. They eventually decided to settle in the United States (Debbie's
home).
• They are used to enclose cross- reference. The word abacus [see
page 15] denotes a special educative toy.
• Since an “ aside” necessary distracts attention from the main
theme, parentheses should be used as sparingly as possible.
 Inverted commas
• Inverted commas can be single - ‘x’ - or double - ‘’x‘’. They
are also known as quotation marks, speech marks, or
quotes.
• Inverted commas are mainly used in the following cases:
• to mark the beginning and end of direct speech (i.e. a
speaker’s words written down exactly as they were spoken):
‘That,’ he said, ‘is nonsense.’
‘What time will he arrive?’ she asked.
• to mark off a word or phrase that’s being discussed, in
conversation with someone else or to himself as a thought,
or that’s being directly quoted from somewhere else:
He called this phenomenon ‘the memory of water’.
What does ‘integrated circuit’ mean?
The old gentleman was very worried .
“I did have a ticket,” he said.
“I’m quite sure that I bought one before I got into he
train”
“That’s all right, sir,” answered the inspector kindly.
“I’ve got plenty of time.”

• Single or double?
• There’s no rule about which to use but you should
stick to one or the other throughout a piece of
writing. Single inverted commas are generally more
common in British English while American English
tends to prefer double ones.
• If you find that you need to enclose quoted material
within direct speech or another quotation, use the
style you haven’t used already. So, if you’ve been
using single inverted commas, put any further
quoted material within double ones and vice versa.
to avoid confusion. For example:

• She still sounds amazed when she says: ‘We were

turned down because “we represented too small a
minority of the population”. They could still get
away with saying things like that then.’
“My favourite book of poems is Plagrave’s
‘Golden Treasurey’,” said the old man.
• They‘re also used to enclose quotations from speech or from
books, and before and after the titles of books, plays,
magazines, newspapers, etc.
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day” is the opening line of
Gray’s “Elegy written in a country churchyard.”
• These marks are used around a slang or technical term
when it is in a context in which it is not usually found, or
around a word to which the writer wishes to draw attraction.
He called himself a “gentleman”.
Note: never put inverted commas round a person’s real
name or round name of a country, except when they are
titles of books, plays, articles, poems and so on.
Milton wrote “Paradis Lost.”
Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet.”
 Apostrophe (’)
A. It is used to indicate that a letter (or more than one
letter) has been missed out.
• Three o’clock= three of the clock.
• I’m = I am You’re= you are
• It’s= it is haven’t= have not
B. It is used with the letter s after a noun to show
possession. When one person is the owner, an s
added to the owning word.
The man’s hand Ali’s book
Plurals are usually formed by the addition of an s’.
When such formations are to show possession, an
apostrophe is added after the s.
The boys’ books ladies’ coats
The Smiths’ home workers’ union
Use an of-phrase rather than ’s to form the
possessive of a noun that names an inanimate
thing.
The hand of the clock (not the clock’s hand)
The leg of the chair (not the chair’s leg)
Note that the pronouns its, hers, his, yours, theirs,
whose, and ours have no apostrophe.
C. It is used to indicate unusual plurals.
The word book has two o’s.
I was active during the 1960’s.
All MP’s will be admitted.
• Use an apostrophe to show that a thing
or person belongs or relates to
someone or something:
• instead of saying the party of Ben
• or the weather of yesterday,
• you can write Ben’s party and
yesterday’s weather.
 The Hyphen (-)
A. It is used to make compound words. It shows close
connection between two words or two parts of a
word.
a bad- tempered man two- sevenths
a kind- hearted woman twenty- seven
a two - edged sword two-thirds
a well- earned rest forty-three
a ten- year-old boy three-eights
a second- hand car ninety-nine
B. It is used to link a prefix to a base: pro-Soviet, pan-
Arab, anti- Nazi.
C. It is used to indicate that a printed word at the end of
a line is not complete.
 The Abbreviation Dot
• It resembles a full stop in shape. It is used:
a) After a person’s initials, but not always: Mr. J.B.
Shaw or J B Shaw.
b) Notice that with capitals it is not used: GB, UN,
USA, etc., but used in expressions like: i.e., e.g.,
etc., p.m., and so on.
 Capital letter
a. Every sentence, and, in poetry, every line, must
begin with a capital letter.
b. Proper nouns, and adjectives derived from them,
must begin with a capital. A proper noun is the
name of a particular person, place , or thing. A
proper adjective is derived from a proper noun.
Iraq Iraqi
Spain Spanish
Shakespeare Shakespearian
c. All the important words in the title of books, plays, etc. must
begin with a capital. Articles (a, an, the), co-ordinating
conjunctions, and short preposition are not capitalized,
except, of course, when they form the first word of the title.
“Romeo and Juliet”
“A Man for All Seasons”
“Mutiny on the Bounty”
“The Fall of the House of Usher”.
d. The name of the days of the week and the months of the
year must be capitalized.
Monday February
Note, however, that the names of seasons do not begin with a
capital.
spring autumn
 Numbers
a. All numbers except those that more than three words are
written out.
ten, thirty-four 156,453111
b. Use figures in dates and in reference to times which include
a.m. or p.m.
3rd July, 1973 10 a.m. 5:20 p.m.
c. Do not begin a sentence with figures.
WRONG 356 people attended the lecture
RIGHT Three hundred and fifty-six people attended the lecture
or
There were 356 people present at the lecture.
d. Note that all numbers from twenty-one through ninety-nine are
hyphenated.
 Supply appropriate end punctuation for the following
sentences. State the reason for each mark.
1. In which direction were the birds flying
2. She asked me if I had a car
3. How far is it from Baghdad to Mousl
4. I wondered why he was running down the street
5. Do you know where I can find a hammer
6. The boy would not say when he had last seen his father
7. What a lot of luggage you’ve brought
8. How absurd it is to think that mankind is perfect
1. In which direction were the birds flying?
2. She asked me if I had a car.
3. How far is it from Baghdad to Mousl?
4. I wondered why he was running down the street.
5. Do you know where I can find a hammer?
6. The boy would not say when he had last seen his
father.
7. What a lot of luggage you’ve brought!
8. How absurd it is to think that mankind is perfect!
 Begin Each Sentence In The Following Groups With Capital
Letter And End It With A Full Stop.

1. this woman was the strangest I had ever

seen she looked as though she not had a
good wash for years her hair fell down her
back to her waist it did not surprise me to
learn that many people mistook her for a
gypsy
2. you must follow the path across the fields for
about a quarter of a mile soon you will see
on your right a white gate opening into a
farmyard opposite it is a stone stile get over
the stile and you will find you are in a field on
a hilltop below you is the valley you want to
see
 The answers
1. This woman was the strangest I had ever seen.
She looked as though she not had a good wash
for years. Her hair fell down her back to her waist.
It did not surprise me to learn that many people
mistook her for a gypsy.
2. You must follow the path across the fields for about
a quarter of a mile soon you will see on your right a
white gate opening into a farmyard. Opposite it is a
stone stile, get over the stile and you will find you
are in a field on a hilltop. Below you is the valley
you want to see.
• He opened the purse there was nothing in
it his pockets were turned inside out they
were empty also every penny he
possessed must have been left in his other
coat we offered to lend him five shillings it
was all we had between us that would only
take him part of the way home.
• He opened the purse. There was
nothing in it. His pockets were
turned inside out. They were
empty, also every penny he
possessed must have been left in
his other coat. We offered to lend
him five shillings. It was all we
had between us, that would only
take him part of the way home.