Punctuation – Top Tips

Commas (,)

These are the most controversial and most common punctuation mark. Their use is often down to personal style, however there are some cases where using them is vital for the reader’s understanding.

As a general guide, read a sentence aloud and see where it seems natural to breathe. Mark these points with commas.

Like some pauses in speech, commas can be used to emphasise what has gone before, and what follows:

‘On the other hand, it would be…’

Commas are used when two complete sentences are joined together with and, or, but, while and yet:

‘Sally wanted to stay up until midnight, but she grew tired and fell asleep’

They are naturally used between items in a list (except where a semi-colon is needed, see later section):

‘We need more staff, better IT, larger desks, and more tea-breaks’

Note that there is no fixed rule about using or omitting the comma before the ‘and’ that introduces the last item. Choosing to put a comma there can give it more emphasis – but it really is about personal style.

There are times when inserting a comma is vital for making yourself sound sensible! Try this without a comma being placed before the and:

‘A man managed to escape from the car before it sank and swam to the river-bank’ (!)

Commas must be used before and after a phrase or clause which is inserted into the sentence by way of description:

‘Enid Blyton, author of children’s books such as The Famous Five and The Secret Seven, always included a dog in her stories.‘

‘This department, which was set up a year ago, has already had some amazing results’

Commas can imply missing words:

‘Sue has dark hair; Sally, bleached blonde!’

Semi-Colons (;)

The ‘authorities’ differ about semi-colons. In business writing, you will be safe if you confine them to two purposes:

To separate, less strongly than with a full stop, two complete sentences which are very closely linked in sense, especially for comparison or contrast:

‘We could bring in consultants; on the other hand, doing the survey ourselves might save both time and money.’

‘I loved eating Marathons; they are now called Snickers, of course’

To separate the items in a list, if each item in itself is rather long, and especially if commas are needed within items. Also if the items within the list are unrelated:

‘We have three choices: to run the new system, with all its faults immediately, and hope to solve problems as they arise; to continue the dummy run until all bugs have been removed; or to abandon the project altogether’

Colons (:)

A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Can you hear a delighted, satisfied ‘Yes!’ where the colon comes in these two examples?

‘This much is clear, Watson: it was the baying of an enormous hound.’

‘I have one main rule with my children: always be polite’

As well as the ‘Yes!’ type of feel above, there is also the ‘Ah’ type…when the colon reminds us there is probably more to the initial statement than meets the eye:

‘I didn’t get a Valentine’s card this year: everyone else did.’

‘You can do it: and you will do it’

Colons introduce material that explains or expands the first part of a sentence. What follows may be a continuous prose, a list or a long quotation. The colon therefore expresses the idea of ‘namely’ or ‘as follows’. Modern usage has dropped the dash after an introductory colon (:-) but there is no fixed rule about this:

‘There are several things that annoy me: litter-louts; rudeness; swearing; and road-hogs’

Inverted Commas (‘quotation marks’)

These have 4 main uses:

At the start and end of direct speech
Around titles of books, songs, films etc…
To introduce a specialist term or technical nickname: ‘;that kind of train is known as a “Sprinter” ’ From then on, the term can be used without the marks.
As a visual, and compact, way of expressing the idea of ‘so-called’ or ‘what is generally known as…’: ‘The “average family” doesn’t exist’

Apostrophes (’)

These can cause difficulties! Here are some guidelines to iron out the most common areas of confusion:

The apostrophe shows possession. “The boy’s cat” means the cat belonging to the boy. There is only one boy, because the apostrophe appears after the word “boy”. But – “the boys’ cat” tells us that there is now more than one boy, because the apostrophe appears after the word “boys”
The apostrophe is used to replace a letter in words such as: it’s (it is), don’t (do not), can’t (cannot) etc.

With ‘it’s’, unless we are meaning ‘it is’, the word does not have an apostrophe: ‘The sun shone, its heat warming the air’
“Hers”, “ours”, “yours” and theirs do not have apostrophes, but “one’s” does

Hyphens (-)

A safe rule of thumb is to use fewer hyphens rather than more. However, where a whole phrase is used as an adjective before a noun, it is often clearer if it is hyphenated: ‘a two-day programme’ ; ‘an all-in package’, ‘an 18^th-century novel’; ‘the seven-o’clock train’.

Sometimes you need a hyphen to make the meaning of a sentence clear – a
‘re-formed’ rock band is very different from a ‘reformed’ one! A ‘long standing’ friend is quite different from a ‘long-standing’ one!

Hyphens should be used when spelling out numbers, such as thirty-two, twenty-eight

Use hyphens when linking nouns with nouns, such as the London-Brighton race.

Certain prefixes require hyphens: un-English, anti-Apartheid, semi-detached.
When certain words are to be spelled out, it is helpful to use hyphens to indicate that you want the letters spoken separately: B-O-O-T-H

Question Marks (?)

These should appear only after direct questions:

‘Is this correct?’ They should not be used after indirect questions such as: ‘We asked how it might work’.

Exclamation Marks (!)

Ever since it came along, grammarians have warned us to be wary of the exclamation mark, mainly because, even when we try to muffle it with brackets (!), it still shouts, flashes like neon, and jumps up and down. Before littering your text with them, ask yourself whether you require such a big effect!