We use punctuation to create sense and clarity. Every punctuation mark has a meaning and each language has its rules.
Use punctuation in English and improve your writing skills!
The comma (,) marks a short pause between elements in a sentence.
It separates two sentences:
Items on a list:
Adjectives:
Before question tags and short answers:
In reported speech:
We use quotation marks (" " or ' ') in direct speech:
To draw attention to a word:
We use the full stop (.)
to mark the end of a sentence:
in initials for people's names:
after abbreviations that don't contain the last letter of the shortened word:
after an indirect question:
We use the question mark (?) at the end of a question:
We use the exclamation mark (!) after exclamations and emphatic expressions:
We use the colon (:)
in front of a list:
in front of an explanation or a reason:
to introduce direct speech:
We use brackets (also called parentheses) to enclose a word or words that can be left out and still leave a meaningful sentence.
We use the hyphen (-) to join words or parts of words.
After prefixes:
or to form an adjective:
