(Kane, Thomas S.

The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing, New York: Berkley Books, 2000)

PUNCTUATION

STOPS
Period
A. Closes all declarative sentences, whether grammatically complete or not
B. Abbreviations: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., i.e., etc., and e.g.. *Some abbreviations do not take periods

Question mark
A. As an end stop: closes all direct questions, including rhetorical ones.
B. Within the sentence
1. May mark a word or construction: ... and how to create in the childby what means?a stronger antidote to this poison...
2. In parenthesis may indicate uncertainty about a matter of fact or belief: "In 1492 (?) when Columbus discovered America...."

Exclamation point
A. As an end stop, marks a strong statement
B. Within the sentence, stresses a word or construction: Worse yet, he must accepthow often!poverty and solitude.

INTERNAL STOPS
COLON
I. Introduces specifications, often, though not always, in the form of a list or series
II. Introduces quotations, particularly extended written ones
III. Occasionally introduces rhetorical questions

SEMICOLON
I. Between independent clauses
A. Paratactic: semicolon is the conventional stop (parataxis = the juxtaposition of clauses/phrases without conjunctions)
Sentimentality and repression have a natural affinity; they're the two sides of one counterfeit coin.
The New Deal was a new beginning; it was a new era of American government.
B. Coordinated: comma is conventional, semicolon is optional for clarity or emphasis
So the silence appeared like Death; and now she had death in her heart.
II. In lists and series: semicolon between all items when any item contains a comma
There were other factors too: the deadly tedium of small-town life, where any change was a relief; the nature of
current Protestant theology, rooted in Fundamentalism and hot with bigotry; and, not least, a native American
moralistic blood lust that is half historical determinism, and half Freud.

COMMA
PUNCTUATION OF INDEPENDENT CLAUSES
I. When coordinated:
A. Conventional punctuation: comma
History is a story that cannot be told in dry lines, and its meaning cannot be conveyed in a species of geometry.
B. Optional punctuation
1. Semicolon
a. If the clauses are long and internally punctuated
b. Ifeven with short clausesa long pause is effective
2. No stop at all if the clauses are short, unpunctuated, clearly related, and a pause is not desirable
Do as I tell you and you'll never regret it.
II. When paratactic:
A. Conventional punctuation: semicolon (see above)
B. Optional punctuation: comma. If the clauses are short, clearly related, contain no commas, and fast movement is
desirable
Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some
professed to have not even heard of any elephant.
PUNCTUATING A SERIES
I. Combined parataxis and coordination: commas and optional comma
bread, eggs, and cheese
II. Completely paratactic: commas
bread, eggs, cheese
III. Completely coordinated
A. Conventional punctuation: no stops
bread and eggs and cheese
B. Optional punctuation: commas for emphasis or rhythm
bread, and eggs, and cheese
IV. Series with a comma in one or more items: semicolons
bread, which she found too mouldy; eggs; and cheese
(*Semicolons are conventionally used between all items when any item contains a comma within itself.)
COMMA WITH ADJECTIVALS
I. Single-word adjectives
A. Restrictive: no comma

(Kane, Thomas S. The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing, New York: Berkley Books, 2000)

The angry man sat down.

B. Nonrestrictive: comma(s)
Angry, the man sat down.
The man, angry, sat down.
The man sat down, angry.
II. Participial adjectival phrases
A. Restrictive: no comma
The man sitting down looked angry.
B. Nonrestrictive: comma(s)
Sitting down, the man looked angry.
The man, sitting down, looked angry.
Born to lowly circumstances, he came up the easy way.
III. Adjectival (relative) clauses
A. Restrictive: no comma
The man who was sitting down looked angry.
B. Nonrestrictive: comma(s)
The man, who was sitting down, looked angry.
COMMA WITH ADVERBIALS
I. Single-word adverbs
A. Sentence adverbs: usually punctuated, whether in initial, closing, or interrupting position
However, the people left.
The people, however, left.
The people left, however.
*exceptions
Fortunately(,) the people left.
The people therefore left.
B. Adverbs modifying verbs and other modifiers: not punctuated unless they are in an unusual position, when a comma may
be used for clarity or emphasis.
The people slowly left.
Slowly, the people left. (emphatic)
The people left, slowly.
II. Adverbial phrase
A. Initial position: punctuation optional
On the whole(,) the men were satisfied
B. Closing position: not generally punctuated, though comma may be used for emphasis
The men were satisfied on the whole.
The men were satisfied, on the whole. (emphatic)
C. Interrupting position: punctuation conventionally required
The men, on the whole, were satisfied.
The men were, on the whole, satisfied
III. Adverbial clause
A. Initial position: usually punctuated
When the sun went down, the women left camp.
When the sun went down the women left camp. (option with short, clearly related clauses)
B. Closing position: not usually punctuated, though a comma may be used for emphasis or clarity
The women left camp when the sun went down.
The women left camp, when the sun went down. (emphatic)
C. Interrupting position: conventionally punctuated
The women, when the sun went down, left camp.
AFTER A PARTICIPIAL OR VERBLESS CLAUSE, A SALUTATION, OR A VOCATIVE.
Having had breakfast, I went for a walk.
The sermon (being) over, the congregation filed out.
My son, give me thy heart.
*No comma with expressions like My friend Lord X or My son John.
COMMA WITH THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE SENTENCE
The main elements of a sentencethe subject, verb, and objectare not separated by commas except under unusual conditions.
e.g. Inversion: What he actually meant by it, I cannot imagine.
Not the usual order: The lectures, / understand, are given and may even be taken.
COMMA WITH APPOSITIVES (a word or construction which refers to the same thing as another and is (usually) set
immediately after it.)
A. Restrictive: no comma (Sometimes, however, a comma is placed after such a clausethough not beforeto mark its end and signal a new
construction.)

The argument that the corporations create new psychological needs in order to sell their wares is equally flimsy.
B. Nonrestrictive: comma
She was a splendid woman, this Mme. Guyon.
COMMA WITH ABSOLUTES (= a construction that is included within a sentence but is not really a grammatical part of that sentence; it serves as a kind
of loose clausal modifier. Italicised in the examples below)

A. Nominative absolutes: comma (the most common kind in composition.

The bluffs along the water's edge were streaked with black and red and yellow, their colors deepened by recent rains.

(Kane, Thomas S. The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing, New York: Berkley Books, 2000)

The official, his white shirt clinging with sweat to his ribs, received me with a politeness clearly on the inner edge of
neurosis.
B. Participial and infinitive absolutes: comma
Allowing for hyperbole and halving the figure, that is still amazing.
To revert for a moment to the story told in the first person, it is plain that in that case the narrator has no such liberty...
COMMA WITH SUSPENDED CONSTRUCTIONS (two or more units are hooked grammatically to the same thing. A form of parallelism)
Many people believed, and still do, that he was taking Nazi money to run his machine.
COMMA WITH DATES AND PLACE-NAMES
A. American usage April 14, 1926
B. European usage 14 April 1926
Place-names: London, Ontario
Kittery Point, Maine

THE DASH ()
The dash has no function that is uniquely its own. Instead it acts as a strong comma and as a less formal equivalent to the semicolon,
the colon, and the parenthesis. The dash should not to be confused with the hyphen. It is a longer mark. Should be employed only
when emphasis is necessary.

A. The Dash Isolating Final Constructions

Our time is one of disillusion in our species and a resulting lack of self-confidencefor good historical reasons.
B. The Dash Around Interrupting Phrases and Dependent Clauses
Some of those writers who most admired technologyWhitman, Henry Adams, and H. G. Wells, for examplealso
feared it greatly.
C. The Dash with Coordinated Elements
We wereand arein everyday contact with these invisible empires.
What the youth of Americaand their observing elderssaw at Bethel was the potential power of a new generation...
D. The Dash Around Intrusive Sentence Absolutes
The opening paragraphit is one of Pushkin's famous openingsplunges the reader into the heart of the matter.

OTHER MARKS

THE APOSTROPHE

APOSTROPHE TO SHOW POSSESSION

A. Common Nouns
the cat's bowl, the girl's hat, the boy's jacket
for appearance's sake OR for appearance' sake
the girls' books, the mechanics' toolboxes
the men's books, the children's toys
B. Proper Nouns
Sarah's house, Eisenhower's career
Henry James's novels, John Keats's poetry OR John Keats' poetry
Jesus' ministry NOT Jesus's ministry
Xerxes' army NOT Xerxes's army
APOSTROPHE TO SHOW CONTRACTION
He'll go.
APOSTROPHE TO MARK ELISION
e'en for even, ne'er for never
THE APOSTROPHE WITH THE PLURAL FORMS OF LETTERS AND NUMERALS
A. Used in the plural
Learn your ABCs.
The 1960s were a period of great change.
B. Capital letters in abbreviations with periods
The university graduated twenty M.A.'s.
C. Capital letters that might look confusing with a simple -s plural
He makes his A's in an unusual way.
D. Lowercase letters used as nouns
Mind your p's and q's.

QUOTATION MARKS double ("... ") and single ( ' . . . ' ) .

A. Direct quotations
She said, "We are not going."
Professor Brown writes: "By themselves statistics are rarely enough; they require careful interpretation."
Professor Jones claims that "by themselves statistics are rarely enough; they require careful interpretation."
B. Certain titles

(Kane, Thomas S. The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing, New York: Berkley Books, 2000)

Some titles of literary works are italicized, others are placed in quote marks. The basic consideration is whether the work was
published or presented separately or rather as part of something larger (for example, a magazine or collection). In the first case
the title is italicized; in the second, set within quotes.
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is a shocking short story.
In Vanity Fair Thackeray calls one chapter "How to Live on Nothing a Year."
C. Words given a special sense
Some years later Eton became the first public school"public" in the sense that students were accepted from
everywhere, not merely from the neighborhood.

THE HYPHEN

A. Compounds
gun-shy (conventional compound)
Old-fashioned, once-in-a-lifetime, till-death-do-us-part marriage... (nonce compound)
B. To cite inflectional endings or prefixes
The regular sign of the plural in English is -s.
Anti- and un- are common prefixes, while -ence is a frequent suffix.
C. Combined elements
The lemon groves are sunken, down a three- or four-foot retaining wall. . .

THE ELLIPSIS (. . .)
A. To mark the omission of material from a quotation.
Dante, someone has remarked, is "the last. . . great Catholic poet."
* If the omitted material includes the end of the sentence and/ or the beginning of the next one, four dots are used:
Dante, someone has noted, is "the last great Catholic poet. . . ."
Notice too that the ellipsis is placed inside the quote mark.
B. Used in dialogue to indicate doubt, indecision, weariness, and so on.
She sighed and answered, "I really don't know . . . . "

FOREIGNISMS
Any foreign expression that has not been fully assimilated into English should be italicized:
dolce vita, per se, in vitro

CAPITALIZATION
A. Titles The Last of the Great Men, The Call of the Wild, The Chicago Manual of Style
B. The First Word of a Quotation (With written quotations capitalization of the first word depends
on whether the quotation is introduced after a stop or is worked into the sentence as a noun clause following that.)
G. K. Chesterton writes: "This is the real vulgar optimism of Dickens. . . ."
G. K. Chesterton writes that "this is the real vulgar optimism of Dickens. . . . "
C. Proper Names and Adjectives
Charles Mackintosh BUT a mackintosh coat
He had a de Gaullean sense of country. (Charles de Gaule -> Gaulean; Aristotle -> Aristotelian)
D. Personal Titles
Judge Harry Jones
BUT
Harry Jones was made a judge.
Professor Mary Winter
BUT
Mary Winter became a professor.
E. National and Racial Groups and Their Languages / Continents, Islands, Countries, Regions.
Amerindian, Mexican, Australian, Polish,German, Swahili.
China, Chinese / North America, North American / Manhattan, Manhattanite
F. Institutions and Businesses
G. Governmental Agencies and Political Parties
H. School Subjects and Courses
anthropology
BUT
English
chemistry BUT
French
history
BUT
German
philosophy
BUT
Latin
*Particular courses:
biology BUT
Biology 201
physics BUT
Physics 101