Articles Index
A Quick Quiz on Capitalization
To test your familiarity with the somewhat arbitrary rules for capitalization, edit the following sentences to correct any errors.
Practice in Using Quotation Marks Correctly
This exercise will give you practice in applying our Guidelines for Using Quotation Marks Effectively (U.S. edition).
Guidelines for Using Capital Letters
The basic guidelines for using capital letters appear simple enough, but things become tricky once we get down to the details. Be guided (but not enslaved) by these 18 rules for capitalization in English.
Exercise in Punctuating Nonrestrictive Elements
As a general rule, nonrestrictive words, phrases, and clauses are set off with commas. Test your punctuation prowess by completing this short exercise.
Review Exercise: Using Commas and Semicolons Correctly
This exercise offers practice in using commas and semicolons correctly.
Review Exercise: Adding Commas to a Paragraph II
Insert commas wherever you think they belong in the paragraph "Frederick Douglass." Try reading the paragraph aloud: at least in some cases, you should be able to hear where commas are needed.
Creating Sentences With Commas
This sentence-imitation exercise will give you practice in applying our Top Four Guidelines for Using Commas Effectively.
Review Exercise: Adding Commas to a Paragraph
This exercise offers practice in applying the rules for using commas effectively. Insert commas wherever you think they belong in the paragraph "The Least Successful Car." Try reading the paragraph aloud: at least in some cases, you should be able to hear where commas are needed.
Punctuation Practice: Adding Commas, Colons, Semicolons, and Dashes
This exercise will give you practice in applying the principles introduced in Basic Rules of Punctuation, with special attention to the correct use of commas, colons, semicolons, and dashes.
Guidelines for Using Semicolons, Colons, and Dashes
No intestinal jokes here, please. We're talking about three much-abused marks of punctuation: semicolons, colons, and dashes.
Punctuation Practice: Adding Apostrophes
This exercise will give you practice in applying the principles introduced in Guidelines for Using Apostrophes Correctly.
Punctuation Practice: Adding End Marks of Punctuation
This exercise will give you practice in using the end marks of punctuation: periods, question marks, and exclamation points.
End Punctuation: Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points
We begin our study of punctuation by focusing on the end marks: periods, question marks, and exclamation points.
Punctuation Practice: Adding End Marks of Punctuation II
After you have reviewed the article "End Punctuation: Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points," try this short practice exercise. (The answers are on page two.)
Notes on Exclamation Points
Since it first popped up in the 14th century, the exclamation point has generally been regarded as the hot-headed punk in the school of punctuation. Favored by advertisers, preteens, and writers of ransom notes, the exclamation point is less a mark of punctuation than an oratorical cue or a typographical shriek--in newspaper slang, a "screamer."
The Punctuation Poem: "The Dictaphone Bard" by Franklin P. Adams
By demonstrating how a 19th-century poem might look after being played back through a Dictaphone (an early voice-recording device), Franklin P. Adams highlights (to the point of distraction) the usually unobtrusive marks of punctuation.
Combining Sentences With Contractions
This exercise will give you practice in applying the first principle introduced in the article "Using Apostrophes Correctly": Use an apostrophe to show the omission of letters in a contraction.
A Brief History of Punctuation
Ernest Hemingway's attitude toward punctuation sounds sensible: make sure that you know the rules before you break them. Sensible, maybe, but not entirely satisfactory: after all, just who made up these rules (or conventions) in the first place? Join us as we look for answers in this brief history of punctuation.
Punctuation Practice: Lost in the Witchcrafted Woods
This exercise offers practice in applying the guidelines for using punctuation marks. In the following paragraph, insert commas, quotation marks, colons, and dashes wherever you think they belong.
Basic Rules of Punctuation
Understanding the principles behind the common marks of punctuation should strengthen our understanding of grammar and help us to use the marks consistently in our own writing. Here we'll review the conventional uses of punctuation in American English.
State Abbreviations
A table of the postal (or ZIP code) abbreviations for all 50 states along with their older (or traditional) abbreviations.
Creating Sentences With Semicolons, Colons, and Dashes
This sentence-imitation exercise will give you practice in applying our guidelines for using Semicolons, Colons, and Dashes.
How to Use the Semicolon
Stronger than a comma, less forceful than a period (or full stop): put simply, that's the nature of the semicolon. It's a mark, Lewis Thomas says, that offers "a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come." Here we'll consider the main uses of the semicolon.
Poe on Punctuation
"That punctuation is important all agree," Edgar Allan Poe wrote in 1848, "but how few comprehend the extent of its importance!"
Punctuation Matters: A "Dear John" Letter and a Two Million Dollar Comma
So, instant messengers, do you still think that punctuation is unimportant--that commas, colons, and similar squiggles are just pesky reminders of a bygone era? If so, here are two short stories that may change your mind.