Punctuation Marks

Is designed to Make reading easy. It is the written counterpart of those pauses and
verbal inflections which make speech understandable . It also serves to separate
sentences , phrases and words into orderly elements
Comma (,)
A comma is used to separate between two or three words, sentences, phrases, or clauses.
E.g. Yesterday I met my parents, Sarah and Peter.
2- After dependent clauses
E.g. Since we would be returning late anyway, we stayed to watch the sunset
3- After phrases
E.g. In the light of day, everything looked different
4- Separating independent clauses
E.g. My family went to see the live taping of Jackson, but I stayed home
5- With non-essential phrases or clauses
E.g. My father, who recently retired, is now on a vacation
6- Separate any order of adjective
E.g. They serve cheap, delicious meat
Quotation Marks (“ ” )
The primary function of quotation marks is to set off and represent
exact language (either spoken or written) that has come from
somebody else.
Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks, and colons
and semicolons (dashes as well) go outside.
We should capitalize the first letter of a quote when the quoted
material is a complete sentence.
E.g. John said, “I really hate when it’s hot outside.”
Parentheses ()
1- It is used to add extra information
E.g. I have visited several countries) England, France, and Italy) on my
trip last year.
2- Enclosing figures
E.g. Your participation mark is based on (1) class activity and (2)
assignment submission
Hyphens (-)
Hyphens' main purpose is to join words together. They notify the reader that two
or more elements in a sentence are linked. There should not be spaces around
hyphens
E.g. The teacher uses a one-size-fit-all approach.
When we use hyphens we delete the plural
E.g. This is a two-day training session .
Sometimes we use hyphens with prefixes
E.g. All-star
president-elect
Self-image
State-run tv
Colon (:)
Colon is used after independent clauses
E.g. I have had only one thing on my mind: graduation
Introducing lists
E.g. Our future is dependent on three things: sustainability, diversity, and
enhancing our strength and health.
Semicolon (;)
The most common use of the semicolon is to join two independent clauses without
using a conjunction like and.
A semicolon should be followed by a capital letter only if the word is a proper noun
or an acronym.
E.g. we are planning to get coffee; however, he had to cancel
We use semicolon to separate items that are already separated to avoid confusion
E.g. she traveled to Cairo, Egypt ; Amman, Jordan; and Damascus, Syria .