Punctuation marks are symbols or characters used in written language to provide structure, clarity, and meaning to text. They serve various purposes, including indicating pauses, separating ideas, and conveying emphasis.
Some of the most common forms of punctuation include the full stop or period, which looks like a dot or a point ( . ), commas, ( , ), colons ( : ), semicolons ( ; ), dashes or hyphens ( – ), exclamation points ( ! ) , and so on.
Contractions are words that have been conjoined through the use of an apostrophe, and the omission of certain letters and sounds: haven’t, wouldn’t couldn’t.
What’s an Oxford comma, anyway? When and where is an Oxford comma used in sentences, and when is it best to omit the Oxford comma altogether?
Colons signify a close relationship between clauses, and introduce items in a list or series.
Semicolons connect closely related independent clauses, and they are used to clearly separate items in a list or series with commas.
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If you guessed whether capitalizing after a colon has something to do with style guides, you’re on the ‘write’ path.
Are seasons capitalized? Seasons should be written in lowercase, unless they’re part of a proper noun.
What does Miss, Ms., and Mrs. mean? What are the differences between them?
PS? Postscript? What does this mean? We’re not talking about your PlayStation, though they do share the same initials as the subject of this GrammarFlex article!