Placing Proper Punctuation

Punctuation helps you get your point across and adds tone to your sentence. Punctuation helps you convey how you want people to “hear” the words. Although you have a lot of elbow room with exactly how you want to use punctuation, English grammar does have certain rules that you should follow. (Note that not all rules and guidelines for these punctuation marks are presented here.)

• Endmarks: All sentences need an endmark: a period, question mark, exclamation point, or ellipsis. Never put two endmarks at the end of the same sentence.

• Apostrophes: For singular ownership generally add ‘s; for plural ownership generally add s’.

• Commas: In direct address use commas to separate the name from the rest of the sentence. In lists, place commas between items in a list but not before the first item. When combining two complete sentences with a conjunction, place a comma before the conjunction. If you have one subject and two verbs, don’t put a comma before the conjunction.