Punctuation

1. Punctuation

2. Why? • Writers use capital letters and punctuation marks to help the readerbetterunderstandwhatiswritten.

3. Capital Letters • All sentences beginwith capital letters. • Propernounsalwaysbeginwith capital letters. • The pronoun I isalwayscapitalized. • A capital letterbegins the first, last, and any important word in the title of a book, magazine, song, movie, poem, or otherwork.

4. Punctuation: Period • Use a periodat the end of a sentence thatmakes a statement, requestssomething, or gives a mild command. • Travishated the school lunch today. (statement) • Listencarefullysothatyoudon’tmake the samemistakeagain. (mild command)

5. Punctuation: Period • Most abbreviations end with a period. • Ms. Zadai’s English class istotallyawesome! • Dr. Carbone lives on Lear Nagle Rd.

6. Punctuation: Question & Exclamation • A question endswith a question mark. • Why are you sleeping in class, Mr. Harris? • A statementexpressingstrong feeling or excitementendswith an exclamation point. • What a beautifuldayitis!

7. Punctuation: Comma • A comma comesbetweentwoindependent clauses. • Stefanie finishedher book, and thenshewent to bed. • A comma separates an interruption from the rest of the sentence. • Mr. Piechalski, another English teacher, canbeveryloud.

8. Punctuation: Comma • A comma separateswords, phrases, or clauses in a series. (A seriescontainsat least 3 items. • Wehadsalad, spaghetti, and breadsticks for dinner. • A comma separates items in an address or date. • NorthRidgeville, Ohio • May 13, 1980

9. Punctuation: Colon & Semicolon • A colon shows the readerthat a list or explanationfollows. • I willneed the following items: scissors, paper, glue, and paint. • A semicolon joins two or more closelyrelatedindependent clauses that are not connectedwith a coordinatingconjunction. • I did not call myself a poet; I told people I wrotepoems.

10. Punctuation: Apostrophe • Use an apostrophe to: • Show that one or more letters have been left out of a word to form a contraction. • Hadn’tthey’dit’s class of ‘99 • Form the plural of a letter, a number, a sign, or a worddiscussed as a word by adding an s. • B’sand’sdo’sdon’ts

11. Punctuation: Hyphens • Use a hyphen to make compound words. • Great-grandmotherthree-year-old • Use a hyphen to join a capital letter or a lowercaseletter to a noun or participle. • T-shirt U-turn G-rated • Use a hyphen to join the words in compound numbersfromtwenty-one to ninety-nine. • Four-tenthstwenty-five

12. Punctuation: Dashes • Use a dash to indicate a sudden break or change in the sentence. • Near the year’send—andthisismostly due to poorplanning—a lot of studentsrealizetheyshould do make-up work. • Use a dash to set off parentheticalmaterial – materialthatexplains or clarifies a word or a phrase. • A single incident—atornadothat came without warning—changed the face of the smalltownforever. • Use a dash to indicateinterrupted speech. - Mama, why are you--

13. Punctuation: Parentheses • Use parentheses to set off explanatory or addedmaterialthatinterrupts the normal sentence structure. • Bella (our dog) sits in on the piano lessons (on the piano bench), must to the teacher’ssuprise and amusement. • Whenusing a full sentence withinanother sentence, do not capitalizeit or use a periodinside the parentheses. • Sinceyourfriendwon’t have the assignment (hewasjustthinking about callingyou), you’ll have to make a couple more calls to actuallygetit.

14. Italics (Underlining) • Use italics to indicate the titles of magazine, newspapers, pamphlets, books, full-lengthplays, films, videos, radio and television programs, book-lengthpoems, ballets, operas, paintings, lengthy musical compositions, cassettes, CD’s, legal cases, and the names of ships and aircraft.