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Punctuation and
mechanics
5.1.
commas
COMMAS AFTER INTRODUCTORY
ELEMENTS
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Although most postcards
cost only a quarter,
one recently sold for thousands of
dollars.
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On postcard
racks, several designs are usually
available.
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For
example, animals are timeless favorites for
postcards.
-
However,
most postcards show local
landmarks.
COMMAS WITH COORDINATING
CONJUNCTIONS LINKING INDEPENDENT
CLAUSES
COMMAS WITH ITEMS IN
SERIES
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Places,
paintings, and people appear on
postcards.
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The illustrations on
postcards – places,
paintings, people,
and animals – are chosen for their wide
appeal.
COMMAS WITH COORDINATING
ADJECTIVES
NO COMMAS WITH CUMULATIVE
ADJECTIVES
COMMAS WITH NONRESTRICTIVE
ELEMENTS
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Four years after the first
postcard appeared,
the US government began to issue pre stamped
postcards.
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The Golden Age of
postcards, which lasted from about 1900 to
1929, yielded many especially valuable
cards.
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Collectors attend postcard
shows, which are similar to baseball card
shows.
NO COMMAS WITH RESTRICTIVE
ELEMENTS
COMMAS WITH QUOTED
WORDS
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One collector told
me, “Attending a show is like digging for buried
treasure.”
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“I always expect to find a
priceless postcard,” he
said.
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“Everyone there,” he
joked, “believes a million – dollar card is hidden in the next
stack.”
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5.2.
Semicolons
You can choose whether to use a
semicolon to
replace a period, but do so only between two closely related
independent clauses; using a semicolon creates one
sentence.
NO After she walked out
the door; I never saw her again.
YES She walked out the
door; I never saw her again.
YES She walked out the
door; later, I never saw her again.
A semicolon replaces a comma when you use a coordinating conjunction to
link independent clauses that already contain commas.
Because Death Valley is the hottest place in
North America, some people think that no animals live
there; but visitors, especially, are amazed to see many tiny
and a few larger animals emerge at night, when the temperature
drop, to find food.
In addition, when individual items in a series
contain commas, use a semicolon instead of a comma to separate the
items.
The animals in Death Valley include spiders,
such as black widows and tarantulas; snakes, such as coral
snakes and sidewinders;
and small mammals, such as kangaroo rats,
which can convert seeds into water, and trade rats, which nest
around cactus.
5.3.
colons
Use a colon after an independent
clause to introduce a list, an appositive, or a quotation. Some
lead – in words, such as the following and as follows, are followed
by a colon. Other lead – ins are not.
LISTED ITEMS
The students demanded the
following: an expanded menu in the cafeteria, improved janitorial
services, and more up-to-date textbooks.
APPOSITIVE
Museums in New York and Florida own the
best-known works from Louis Tiffany’s studio: those wonderful
stained-glass windows.
QUOTATION
The little boy in E.T. did say something
neat: “How do you explain school to a higher
intelligence?”
5.4.
apostrophes
The possessive case shows possession or ownership or other relationships. To
indicate possession in nouns, you can choose to use – ‘s, which
calls for an apostrophe; or a phrase beginning with
of, which does
not call for an apostrophe. Here are some applications of this
general rule.
ADD –‘S TO NOUNS NOT ENDING IN
S
She felt a parent’s joy.
We care about our
children’s education.
ADD –‘S TO SINGULAR NOUNS ENDING IN
S
The business’s system for handling
complaints is inefficient.
Lee Jones’s
car insurance is expensive.
ADD ONLY AN APOSTROPHE TO PLURAL NOUNS ENDING IN
S
The two boys’ eyewitness statements
helped solve the crime.
The workers’
contracts permit three
months’ maternity leave.
ADD –‘S TO THE LAST WORD IN COMPOUND WORDS AND
PHRASES
His mother-in-law’s company makes scuba
gear.
ADD –‘S TO EACH NOUN IN INDIVIDUAL
POSSESSION
Avery’s
and Jimmy’s houses are next to
each other.
ADD –‘S TO ONLY THE LAST NOUN IN JOINT OR GROUP
POSSESSION
Lindsey and Ryan’s house has a screened
porch.
5.5.
quotation marks
Quotation marks are most often used to enclose a direct quotation – a
speaker or writer’s exact words. Use quotation marks to enclose
short direct quotations, which in MLA style means a quotation of
fewer than four typed lines of prose or three typed lines of
poetry.
Remarked director Fritz Lang of his
masterpiece Siegfried, “Nothing in this film
is accidental”
Use double
quotation marks to enclose a short
quotation.
Edward T. Hall explains the practicality of
close conversational distances: “If you are interested
in something, your pupils dilate; if I say something you don’t
like, they tend to contract.”
Use single
quotation marks in short quotations
only to replace any double quotation marks that appear in the
original source.
ORIGINAL SOURCE
He has also said that he does not wish to be
the arbiter for what is or is not an “official”
intelligence.
EXAMPLE FROM A RESEARCH PAPER
As Thomas Hoerr reports, Gardner “dos not
wish to be the arbiter for what is or is not an
‘official’
intelligence”
5.6.
Periods, question marks, and exclamation
points
A period is
used after a statement, a mild command, or an indirect question,
which reports a question that someone asks.
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STATEMENT Mountain climbers
enjoy the outdoors.
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MILD COMMAND Pack warm
clothes for the climb.
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INDIRECT QUESTIONS I asked if they wanted to climb Mount
Ross.
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A question mark is used after a direct question, a directly quoted
question, a series of questions, or a polite request. Use a
question mark after each question in a series, whether or not you
choose to capitalize the first word.
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DIRECT QUESTION Have you
ever climbed a mountain?
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DIRECTLY QUOTED QUESTION I
asked , “Do you want to climb
Mount
Everest?”
what to do: Turn
back? Move on?
Rest?
what to do: turn
back? move on?
rest?
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An exclamation point is used after a strong command; an emphatic declaration; or
an interjection, a word that conveys surprise or other emotion. In
academic writing, reserve exclamation points for dialogue. Use
words with sufficient impact for forceful messages.
NO Each day in Nepal,
we tried to see Mount Everest. Each day we
failed!
The summit remained shrouded! Clouds defeated
us!
YES Each day in Nepal,
we tried to see Mount Everest. Each day we
failed.
The summit remained shrouded. Clouds defeated
us!
To convey amazement or sarcasm, use precise
words, not an exclamation point in parenthesis.
NO At 29,035
feet (!), Everest is the world’s highest
mountain.
YES Everest, the
world’s highest mountain, soars at 29,035 feet.
5.7.
other punctuation marks
The dash, typed
as two unspaced hyphens, injects a thought within a sentence
– in the middle or at
the end – for
special emphasis or commentary. You can set off examples,
definitions, appositives, contrasts, and asides with
dashes.
Two of the strongest animals in the jungle are
vegetarians −
the elephant and the gorilla.
[example]
−Dick Gregory, The Shadow That Scares Me
Although the emphasis at the school was mainly
language−speaking, reading, writing−the lessons always
begin with an exercise in politeness. [definition]
−Jade Snow Wong, Fifth Chinese Daughter
The caretakers−the helpers,
nurturers, teachers, mothers−are still
systematically devalued. [appositive]
−Ellen Goodman, “Just Woman’s Work”
Tampering with time brought most of the house tumbling
down, and it was this that made Einstein’s work so
important−and controversial. [contrast]
−Banesh Hoffman, “My Friend, Albert
Einstein”
I live on an income well below the poverty
line−although it does not seem like poverty when the redbud
and dogwood are in bloom together−and when I travel I
have to be careful about expenses. [aside]
−Sue Hubbell, Beekeeper
Like dashes, parenthesis let you
interrupt a sentence’s structure to add information. Parentheses
tend to de-emphasize whatever they enclose; dashes tend to call
attention to whatever they set off.
Parentheses can enclose the same kind of
material that dashes can, such as explanations, definitions,
examples, contrasts, and asides.
In division (also known as
partition), a subject commonly thought of as a single unit is
reduced to its separate parts. [definition]
−David Skwire, Writing with a Thesis
Though other cities (Dresden, for
instance) had been utterly destroyed in World War II, never before
had a single weapon been responsible for such destruction.
[example]
−Lawrence Behrens and Leonard J.Rosen,
Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum
The sheer decibel level of the noise around us is not
enough to make us cranky, irritable, or aggressive.
(It can,
however, affect our mental and physical health, which is
another.) [aside]
−Carol Tavris, Anger: The Misunderstood
Emotion
When quoting three or fewer lines of poetry, use a slash to
divide one line from the next. Leave a space on each side of the
slash.
Consider the beginning of Anne Sexton’s poem “Words”:
“Be careful of words, /
even the miraculous ones.”
To
type numerical fractions (2/3, 1/16) or mixed numbers (12
½, 3
1/8), use a slash to
separate the numerator from the denominator, leaving no space
before or after the slash.
Always set the default on your word processing
program to avoid hyphenation. In
handwritten reports, keep in mind the following
procedures:
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Wherever possible, avoid dividing words with hyphens
at the end of a line;
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If a division is necessary, divide longer words by
syllable and between consonants if possible;
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Never divide for one or two letters or for any
one-syllable words.
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HYPHENATING PREFIXES AND
SUFFIXES
Use hyphens after the prefixes
all-, ex-, and self-.
All-inclusive,
self-reliant
Never use a hyphen when self
is a root word onto suffix is attached.
Selfishness, selfless,
selfhood
Use a hyphen to avoid a
distracting string or repeated letters.
Anti-intellectual,
bell-like
Use a hyphen between a prefix
and the first word of a compound word.
Anti-gun
control
Use a hyphen to prevent
confusion in meaning or pronunciation.
Re-dress,
un-ionize
Use a hyphen when two or more
prefixes apply to one root word.
Pre-and postwar
eras
Use a hyphen before the suffix
–elect.
President-elect
Use a hyphen when a prefix comes before a number or before
a word that starts with a capital letter.
Post-1950,
pro-American
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HYPHENATING COMPOUND
WORDS
Use a hyphen for most compound
modifiers that precede the noun. Never use a hyphen for compound
modifiers after the noun.
Well-researched report;
two-inch clearance [before the
noun]
Report is well researched;
clearance of two inches [after the
noun]
Use a hyphen between compound
nouns joining two units within a measure.
Light-year,
kilowatt-hour, foot-pound
Never use a hyphen when a
compound modifier starts with an adverb ending in
ly.
Happily married
couple
Use a hyphen for most compound
modifiers in the comparative (-er) or superlative (-est) form.
Never use a hyphen when the compound modifier includes more/most or
less/least.
Better-fitting
shoe, best-known work
More significant factor,
least welcome quest
Never use a hyphen when
compound modifier is a foreign phrase.
Post hoc
fallacies
Never use a hyphen with a
possessive compound modifier.
A full week’s work, eight hours’
pay
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HYPHENATING SPELLED-OUT
NUMBERS
Use a hyphen between two-word
numbers from twenty-one through
ninety-nine.
Thirty-five,
two hundred thirty-five
Use a hyphen in a compound
modifier formed from a number and a word.
Fifty-minute class,
50-minute class
Three-to-one odds,
3-to-1
odds
Use a hyphen between the
numerator and the denominator of a two-word
fraction.
One-half,
two-fifths, seven-tenths
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Reference
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Academic writing from
paragraph to essay. Dorothy E Zemach, Lisa A Rumisek. Macmillan ,
2015
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Quick access, reference for
writers, 7th
edition. Lynn Q. Troyka,
Douglas Hesse. Pearson, 2013
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Successful Writing:
Intermediate. Virginia Evans, Express Publishing,
2000.