Punctuation

Period

• Use a period after a declarative sentence, a mildly imperative sentence, or an indirect question.
  Change the rules. He asked if the rules had been changed.

• Use a period after most abbreviations.
  Mr.  Mrs.  Ph.D.  etc.  B.C.E.  NATO   CBS

Ellipsis

• Use the ellipsis mark (three periods) to indicate that one or more words have been left out of a quoted passage. Include spaces before and after the ellipsis.
  John Donne wrote: "No man is an island ... every man is a piece of the continent."

Exclamation Point

• Use the exclamation point to show strong emotion.
  "I simply won't go!" he bellowed.

Semicolon

• You may use a semicolon to link two independent clauses if they are closely related.
  He walked out of the room; he was thoroughly disgusted.

• A semicolon should be used with a relating word (conjunctive adverb) when the relating word links two independent clauses.
  You should stop complaining; instead, you should work harder.

• Use semicolons to separate the items in a series when the items contain commas.
  He invited Charles, a local politician; Fred, a building contractor; and Alex, a small businessman, to the committee meeting.

Colon

• A colon introduces whatever follows it and calls attention to that which follows.
  She had one objective: marriage.

Dashes and Parenthesis

• Use dashes and parentheses very sparingly in writing. Usually commas are enough to set off parenthetical expressions.

• Use dashes to set off expressions that very violently interrupt the flow of the sentence--usually sentences within sentences.
  She was the woman--I wish I'd never met her--who broke my nose.

• Use parentheses to enclose references to figures, page numbers, etc.
  You should read all the material on fertilizers (pp. 274-288).

Quotation Marks

• Use quotation marks for titles of less than book length.
  He was reading "Stamp Out the Smut Kings."

• Use quotation marks to enclose direct quotations.
  "Well," he groaned, "I suppose we should bury him."

• In using marks of punctuation with quotation marks, follow the printers' rules by placing:

1. the period and the comma always within the quotation marks,

2. the colon and semicolon always outside the quotation marks, and

3. the dash, the question mark, and the exclamation point within the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted matter and outside when they apply to the whole sentence.

"I will go," he insisted. He asked, "When did you get here?" Did she say, "I will be there"?

Italics

• Italicize (underline) the title of a complete publication and the words referred to as words.
  Catch 22 is my favorite novel. In England elevators are called lifts.

Capitalization

• Capitalize official names
  Kennedy, England, America, Major Dandy, country, man, my high school, Texan, American, May, Tuesday, spring, winter, the South, go west young man, the Middle East, just east of here