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Many of the basic
rules of punctuation are probably second nature to you, and so you know the
common uses of periods, question marks, and other marks. In this chapter, we’ll
discuss others, including many we use every day, about which you may not be
certain. If you need help with the grammatical terms, see the glossary or the
index.
We won’t attempt
to explain the various and conflicting rules of punctuation in the several
different systems for documenting research: MLA, APA, Chicago, and others. For
those, consult the relevant guidebooks and websites. In this chapter, when we
use quotations in examples, we omit citations.
We’ll start with an easy one.
ADDRESSING
ENVELOPES
The U. S. Postal
Service now requests all capital letters and no punctuation in addresses on
envelopes:
MR VERBAL MORTON 2244
PROPERNOUN ST CONJUNCTION JUNCTION MA 01001
Addresses
like this are easier for their mechanized sorters to read (http://pe.usps.com/BusinessMail101?ViewName=DeliveryAddress).
APOSTROPHES
Many people are
confused by the uses of apostrophes showing possession. One reason for the
confusion is that possessive apos-trophes are often omitted in signs: e.g., McDonalds.
The rules are, with one exception, easy:
Apostrophes show contraction of personal
pronouns and verbs; of verbs and not;
and of nouns and verbs:
Heather’s car—it’s gone, isn’t it?
Heather’s upset, isn’t she?
Possessive pronouns (like his, hers, its, yours, and theirs)
never contain apostrophes. We are particularly likely to forget this when we’re
using its (the possessive pronoun)
and it’s (the contraction for it is).
Plural possessives that end in –s take an apostrophe and no additional s: supervisors’,
librarians’, soldiers’.
Plurals that don’t end in –s take both the apostrophe and –s to show possession: media’s, criteria’s.
There is no consensus on punctuating some possessives.
Some authorities
(like the Modern Language Association, and Strunk and White) call for –’s after all singular nouns to form
possessives, including nouns that end in –s:
Clemens’s, Dickens’s, Jesus’s.
Other authorities (like the Associated Press Stylebook and the American Psychological Association) omit the final –s in those possessives: Clemens’, Dickens’, Jesus’. Find out which style you’re required to use and learn it.
Similarly, some authorities call for
apostrophes to make certain unusual plurals:
He wants to earn all A’s and B’s this
semester.
He prefers the jazz from the 1940’s.
More
and more, it has become acceptable to omit the apostrophes here: He earned As and Bs; the 1940s. But used
carelessly, the omission can be momentarily confusing. For example, the plural As could be confused with the
conjunction as. Follow your teachers’
(or supervisors’) preferences on these.
COMMAS
The
Parenthetical Commas
Commas often come
in pairs, like parentheses, and these pairs have a good many uses. In general,
we can use them where we might use a pair of parentheses (or a pair of dashes).
With parenthetical
commas, the most common and serious error is forgetting the second comma. Don’t
do that.
Put a pair of commas where you could put
parentheses. For example, put a pair of commas around an appositive:
Mr. Smith (the
principal) went to talk to the
family.
Mr. Smith,
the principal, has returned.
Put a pair of commas around a parenthetical
comment (one that interrupts the sentence):
That Bliebermeier boy (whom I’ve pointed out before) is a curious kid.
That Bliebermeier boy, the one I mentioned previously, has been staring at me.
Place commas around states (in city-state
phrases) and years (in month-day-year phrases):
Salem,
Massachusetts, is my favorite
city.
Salem,
Massachusetts, USA, is my favorite city.
October 1939 is when my grandfather was
born.
[No commas are necessary.]
October 31, 1938, is the
day the Martians landed in Grover’s Mill,
New Jersey, and abducted
Orson Welles.
A pair of commas typically encloses adjectives
that follow a noun:
The audience, skeptical and snide, refused to believe my story about
Orson Welles.
Single Commas
For several
reasons, it’s easy to be confused about single commas. Unlike most punctuation,
commas have a variety of uses, and some of those uses are optional. Different
professions and disciplines (like journalism) have their own rules about some
uses.
We’ll explain a set of common uses.
Use a comma after a coordinating conjunction
that joins two independent clauses:
He got the job at the bookstore, and he means to keep it.
He intended to keep the job, but then he found a better
one.
We’re allowed to
omit the comma if the clauses are short and easy to understand without it:
He’s employed and he means to stay employed.
In a sentence that begins with a subordinate
clause, add a comma at the end of the subordinate clause:
Because Mortimer was late, the boss docked his pay.
Before he docked Mortimer’s pay, the boss spoke with him.
If
the subordinate clause is short (no more than three or four words long), the
comma may be omitted. If we write the sentences above with the independent clause first, no comma is
necessary.
The boss docked Mortimer’s pay because he
was late.
The boss spoke with Mortimer after he
docked his pay.
Use a comma whenever you need one for clarity.
Consider this sentence:
WRONG: Some
authorities (like the Modern Language Association and Strunk and White) call
for –’s after all singular nouns to
form possessives.
The
phrase the Modern Language Association
and Strunk and White is
momentarily confusing: Strunk and White might
be read as one authority or two. The comma prevents confusion:
RIGHT: Some authorities (like
the Modern Language Association, and Strunk and White) call for –’s after all singular nouns to form
possessives.
Here’s a general rule for single commas that’s
helpful: Never place just one comma between the subject and verb of the
sentence:
WRONG: Nancy, is the best treasurer we’ve ever had.
[Nancy is the subject, so no comma is
needed.]
WRONG: Nancy, the treasurer is not here today.
[Two commas are needed around the treasurer, which is an appositive.]
RIGHT: Ed, did you know that Nancy is the
treasurer? [This is correct because Ed
is a noun of direct address, not the subject.]
5. We use commas to separate items in a
series:
His favorite necktie is blue, green, red, and
gray.
But
there is disagreement about that last comma (the one before and), which is known as the serial comma (and also as the Oxford comma and that infernal comma). Some authorities leave it out unless it’s
necessary for clarity. Others prefer to use it consistently. Learn which style
your teacher or editor prefers.
Commas and
Non-restrictive Modifiers
Use commas around non -restrictive modifiers, including clauses. This point may call for a bit of review:
Restrictive
clauses (you’ll recall) are adjectivals that contain necessary information that
helps to define the noun; they restrict
(or narrow down) the meaning of the modified noun to something more specific.
They are never enclosed in commas.
Non-restrictive
clauses don’t narrow down, or restrict, the meaning of the noun; they simply
provide supplementary information. They are always enclosed by commas.
Restrictive: All politicians who are crooks should be
jailed.
Non-restrictive: All politicians, who are crooks, should be jailed.
The first example
above says something about only those
specific politicians who are crooks. The second says that all politicans should be jailed because they are all crooks.
The commas mark
the difference in meaning. (Notice that you could also use a pair of
parentheses in the second sentence, instead of commas.)
SEMI-COLONS
These are
generally easier than commas: We use them in only a few cases.
Use a semi-colon—and no coordinating
conjunction—to join two independent clauses into one sentence:
Jill likes the human anatomy
class; she doesn’t need it for her
major, however.
If both clauses are simple and
brief, and neither contains commas, you are allowed to join them with a comma:
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
Use semi-colons to join two or more groups of
words if at least one of the groups contains commas:
Your supervisor, Mr. Smith,
will be here Tuesday; Ms. Jones, his
assistant, will be here Wednesday; and
you, Bob, should be here every day.
The hideous creature had
fangs, tentacles, and a drooling maw;
wings, claws, and piercing eyes; and
blond, wavy hair.
COLONS
As with semi-colons, we use colons in only a
few cases:
Use a colon after a complete sentence to
introduce a list, a clause, or a quotation:
Successful students have
certain traits: patience,
determination, ambition.
Successful students have
certain habits : they plan their
work, they organize carefully, and they look for ways to improve their plans
and organization.
Steve quoted Mark Twain: “Perfect grammar—persistent,
continuous, sustained—is the fourth dimension, so to speak; many have sought
it, but none has found it.”
Notice
that in each example above, a word before the colon (traits, habits, quoted)
announces or anticipates the words that follow it.
We
are also allowed to place the list or phrase first, and then follow it with a
colon and complete sentence:
Patience, determination,
ambition: These are the qualities of
a successful student.
In other words, a
complete sentence must appear to the left or the right of a colon, or in both
positions.
2. A colon never follows words like include, such as, or like:
WRONG: A successful student’s
qualities include: patience,
determination, ambition.
RIGHT: A successful student’s
qualities include patience, determination, ambition.
WRONG: I want to take courses such
as: biology, astrono-my,
and physics.
RIGHT: I want to take courses such
as biology, astronomy, and physics.
A colon should appear at the end of a sentence
that introduces a block quotation. (See the example in the section on ellipses
and square brackets.)
When you introduce examples, with or without a
colon, punctuate carefully. Both of these are correct:
He used many odd words (for
example, flabbergast, discombobulate, and others).
He used many odd words: for
example, flabbergast, discombobulate, and others.
If you wanted to
use e.g. instead of for example in either of the sentences,
the punctuation would not change:
He used many odd words (e.g., flabbergast, discombobu-late, and others).
QUOTATION MARKS
It’s easy for
Americans to be confused about quotation marks because British books,
periodicals, and websites use them differ-ently. (The British are wrong, but don’t tell them we said so.)
You never put quotation marks around the title
of your own short story or essay, although you may put it in boldface type if
you like. If you refer to your own work after it’s published, then you include the quotation marks.
When referring to the short works of others
(e.g., short stories and poems, articles, songs, or a web page within a larger
site), enclose them in quotation marks: “The Raven,” “The Star-
Spangled Banner,” “Frequently Asked Questions.”
Titles of long works (books, newspapers,
magazines, movies, plays, or entire websites) should be italicized: The Lord of the Rings, The New York Times,
The Best Years of Our Lives.
Before
word processing and the personal computer, writers using typewriters underlined titles of long works—The
Lord of the Rings—and some writers continue to do this. But now
computers make italics so easy that we can leave this old-fashioned practice
behind. Underlining is now usually reserved for graphic design purposes, as in
some résumé formats.
Many publications and websites still follow the old journalistic practice of enclosing titles of long works in quotation marks: “The Lord of the Rings.” (In the long-ago past, when newspaper compositors set type by hand or with machines like Linotypes, switching from roman type to italics and back was uneconomically time-consuming.) If you’re writing for one of those outlets, follow their rules.
Commas and periods always go to the immediate
left of quotation marks—,” .”—and
never to the immediate right. Colons and semi-colons never go to the immediate
left of the final quotation marks.
Question marks and
exclamation points go to the left only if they are part of the quotation or
title:
Louis Jordan wrote the song “Is
You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?”
Didn’t he also write “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”?
Notice
that the first example above is a declarative sentence, but it has no period at
the end. Only one final punctuation mark is required.
After an attribution of a quotation (e.g., Paine wrote), commas and quotation marks
follow the verb (wrote, stated, observed, and others) unless one or more
words follow the verb. Notice how the punctuation changes as the attribution or
its placement changes:
Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s
souls.”
Paine wrote that “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
“These are the times,” Paine wrote, “that
try men’s souls.”
“These
are the times that try men’s souls,” as
Thomas Paine wrote.
Did Paine write “These are the times that try
men’s souls”?
Single quotes are used inside double quotes.
Commas and periods are placed inside single quotes:
Irving Berlin wrote “God Bless America.”
The announcer said, “Irving Berlin wrote such popular
songs as ‘White Christmas,’ ‘There’s No Business like Show Business,’ and ‘God
Bless America.’”
Notice the three quotation marks after the
period above.
See the example of block
quotations in the section on ellipses and square brackets.
ELLIPSES AND
SQUARE BRACKETS
We are permitted
to delete words from direct quotations if we use ellipses (three spaced
periods) to tell our readers (1) that words have been deleted and (2) where the
deleted words were.
Similarly, we can
add words to quotations by enclosing the additions in square brackets.
The following
sentence, which contains a quotation, uses both ellipses and brackets:
In his book The Great Movies, film critic Roger
Ebert writes that The Maltese Falcon is
“[a]mong the movies we not only love but treasure. . . .”
In the original
text by Ebert, the quoted words were at the beginning of a sentence, so the
writer has used brackets to make the first letter of among lowercase. (The brackets for changing the capital are not
always required, depending on the style guide you’re using.)
Also notice that
after the three ellipses, there is a fourth period to end the sentence.
Here’s a second
example, using a block quotation from Garry Wills’s book Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership. A block quotation is
typically four or more lines long.
Here, the writer
introduces the quotation from Wills with a complete sentence (Wills explains . . . ) that ends in a
colon. In the block quotation, the writer has deleted words with ellipses and
inserted a comment in square brackets:
Wills explains why radicals of
the 1930’s and 1940’s objected to moderate leaders like Eleanor Roosevelt:
Those who reject the moderate
leader because only a radical protest is “authentic” [a term describing protest
that is believed to be sincere and effective] will never understand the need
more ordinary people have for help to meet life’s daily problems. Nor do they
see how moderates alter power by making it more responsible . . . . Eleanor
Roosevelt was “naïve” in the eyes of ideologues . . . who did not understand
her extraordinary appeal.
As this example
illustrates, block quotations have a wider left margin and are not enclosed in
quotation marks. Within block quotations, use double quotations, as above.
ITALICS AND
WRITING ABOUT LANGUAGE
When we write
about words as words (i.e., as examples of language), those words should be italicized,
although quotation marks are often used and are also correct.
When you speak of carrying
something from one point to another, do you ever say tote, lug, or schlep?
You can use
quotation marks in this sentence, but it complicates the punctuation:
Do you ever say “tote,” “lug,” or “schlep”?
PERIODS AND
ABBREVIATIONS
It was long the
rule to place a period after every initial letter in abbreviations like these: U.S.A., U.K., U.N., N.A.S.A.
Today in most (but
not all) publications and contexts, we omit the periods: USA, UK, UN, NASA are now widely acceptable.
We still put
periods after abbreviations that include the first letter and later letters in
the same word: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., Sen.
(The British omit the periods in some of these, but we’ve already warned you
about them.)
CAPITAL OFFENSES
You know most of
the rules already, but here are a couple that may be new to you.
Capitalize The in the titles of books, newspapers,
and other publications only if the word is part of the title. Thus we write The New York Times, but the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News.
In titles, it’s
usual to capitalize the first word, all nouns and verbs, and all adjectives and
adverbs, but practices vary consider-ably. You’ll have to consult the relevant
style guide.
And do we write earth or Earth? Do we write sun and
moon, or Sun and Moon? Internet or internet? Not even a dictionary can help with some words. Again,
consult your style guide. Or make up your own mind and be consistent about it.
EXERCISES
1. In the following sentences,
place a comma wherever necessary.
Stephen Colbert the irreverent
late-night host often pokes fun at political leaders.
Ralph Ellison’s only completed
novel Invisible Man won the National Book Award.
The rescue workers exhausted
and discouraged stared at the rubble without speaking.
You can go when you are
finished or you can stay and ask questions.
When you are finished you can
go or you can stay and ask questions.
“He
has plundered our seas ravaged our coasts burnt our towns and destroyed the
lives of our people.” (The Declaration of Independence.)
The long twisting and muddy road led to an
abandoned car.
That movie which I’ve seen before is too
violent for me.
He thought New York City New
York was the greatest city on earth.
I have been working hard on my
writing and I hope to do better in my next English class.
November 22 1963 is a day most
Baby Boomers remember clearly.
2. Which sentence below is unfair to teenaged
drivers?
Restrictive: Teenaged drivers who drive like maniacs
should lose their licenses.
Non-restrictive: Teenaged drivers, who drive
like maniacs, should lose their
licenses.
Which sentence below is unfair to grammarians?
Restrictive: Grammarians who are always correcting other people’s grammar should be thrown out
a second-story window.
Non-restrictive: Grammarians, who are always
correcting other people’s grammar,
should be thrown out a second-story window.
3. Insert a colon or semi-colon
where necessary or correct a mistake.
He was fired yesterday he simply wasn’t doing
his job.
The boss offered only one
explanation he simply wasn’t doing his job.
A main clause contains a
subject and a predicate it can stand alone as a complete sentence.
A main clause is easy to
define it contains a subject and a predicate and can stand alone as a complete
sentence.
Some interesting Southern
expressions include: tote, y’all, and
schlimozel.
Tote, y’all, and schlimozel, I’m not sure
those are all Southern expressions.
4. Correct punctuation as necessary in the
following quotations.
The first two are one sentence long; the third is two sentences.
My mother had a great deal of
trouble with me wrote Mark Twain but I think she enjoyed it.
Elbert Hubbard wrote “Your
friend is the man who knows all about you and still likes you.
[All of the following is a
quotation from Jones, with a brief attribution in the middle of the quotation.]
Senator Phogbound has an
evasive word for everything Jones wrote. When he was caught tapping into his
campaign funds, he called it “a possible error.”
5. Add or correct punctuation wherever necessary.
When theres a snow day we
typically dont have to make it up unless weve had many of them.
Its always a relief after
youve finished a research paper and turned it in.
St. Louis Missouri is Charles
home and he returns there whenever he can
You can write one independent
clause and its possible to add a second with a coordinating conjunction.
This is one independent clause this is another
independent clause.
These are the steps in the writing process
prewriting drafting revision and exhaustion.
Because its my grandmothers home Atlanta
Georgia is my favorite city and Orlando Florida which is not that far from
Atlanta is my favorite vacation spot.
My Aunt Hepatica still believes that Orson
Welles drama the War of the Worlds was real. [Hint: It was a radio
dramatization of a novel by H. G. Wells.]
