6: Punctuation
- The role of punctuation and the scope of this chapter
- Punctuation and italics
- Punctuation and boldface or color
- Punctuation and font—aesthetic considerations
- Parentheses and brackets in relation to surrounding text
- Quotation marks in relation to surrounding text
- Punctuation and space—one space or two?
- Punctuation with URLs and email addresses
- Periods and commas in relation to closing quotation marks
- Other punctuation in relation to closing quotation marks
- Single quotation marks next to double quotation marks
- Use of the period
- Periods in relation to parentheses and brackets
- When to omit a period
- Periods in ellipses
- Use of the comma
- Commas in pairs
- Commas relative to parentheses and brackets
- Serial commas
- Commas with “etc.” and “et al.”
- Omitting serial commas before ampersands
- Commas with independent clauses joined by coordinating conjunctions
- Commas with compound predicates
- Commas with introductory dependent clauses
- Commas with dependent clauses following the main clause
- Commas with intervening dependent clauses (two consecutive conjunctions)
- Commas with relative clauses—“that” versus “which”
- Commas with appositives
- Commas with descriptive phrases
- Commas with participial phrases
- Commas with adverbial phrases
- Commas with a participial or adverbial phrase plus a conjunction
- Commas with introductory phrases
- Commas with an introductory “yes,” “no,” or the like
- Commas with an introductory “oh” or “ah”
- Commas with coordinate adjectives
- Commas with repeated adjectives
- Commas with dates
- Commas with addresses
- Commas with quotations
- Commas with quoted or italicized titles and expressions
- Commas with questions
- Commas with “Jr.,” “Sr.,” and the like
- Commas with “Inc.,” “Ltd.,” and the like
- Commas with “not” phrases
- Commas with “not . . . but,” “not only . . . but also,” and the like
- Commas with “the more,” “the less,” and so on
- Commas with parenthetical elements
- Commas with “however,” “therefore,” “indeed,” and the like
- Commas with “such as” and “including”
- Commas with “that is,” “namely,” “for example,” and the like
- Commas with “too” and “either”
- Commas with direct address
- Commas to indicate elision
- Commas between homonyms
- Use of the semicolon
- Semicolons with “however,” “therefore,” “indeed,” and the like
- Semicolons with “that is,” “for example,” “namely,” and the like
- Semicolons before a conjunction
- Semicolons in a complex series
- Use of the colon
- Space after colon
- Lowercase or capital letter after a colon
- Colons with “as follows” and other introductory phrases
- Colons to introduce quotations or questions
- Colons in formal communication
- Some common misuses of colons
- Use of the question mark
- Direct and indirect questions
- Question marks in relation to surrounding text and punctuation
- Use of the exclamation point
- Exclamation rather than question
- Exclamation point as editorial protest or amusement
- Exclamation points in relation to surrounding punctuation
- Hyphens and dashes compared
- Hyphens in compound words
- Hyphens as separators
- En dash as “to”
- En dash with an unfinished number range
- En dashes with compound adjectives
- En dashes with campus locations
- En dashes and line breaks
- En dash as em dash
- En dash as minus sign
- Em dashes instead of commas, parentheses, or colons
- Em dash between noun and pronoun
- Em dashes for sudden breaks or interruptions
- Em dashes with “that is,” “namely,” “for example,” and similar expressions
- Em dashes with other punctuation
- Em dashes and line breaks
- Em dashes in lieu of quotation marks
- Em dashes in lists, indexes, and tables
- 2-em dash
- 3-em dash
- Use of parentheses
- Parentheses for glosses or translations
- Parentheses within parentheses
- Parentheses with other punctuation
- Use of square brackets
- Square brackets in translated text
- Square brackets for parentheses within parentheses
- Square brackets in phonetics
- Square brackets with other punctuation
- Angle brackets and braces
- Other names for the slash
- Slashes to signify alternatives
- Slashes with two-year spans
- Slashes with dates
- Slashes in abbreviations
- Slashes as fraction bars
- Slashes to show line breaks in quoted poetry
- Slashes in URLs and other paths
- Slashes and line breaks
- Quotation marks relative to other punctuation and text
- “Smart” quotation marks
- Use of the apostrophe
- “Smart” apostrophes
- Apostrophes relative to other punctuation
- Use of the space
- Spaces with different widths
- Nonbreaking spaces
- Likely combinations for multiple punctuation marks
- Abbreviation-ending periods with other punctuation
- Periods with question marks or exclamation points
- Commas with question marks or exclamation points
- Question mark with exclamation point
- Lists and outlines—general principles
- Run-in versus vertical lists
- Run-in lists
- Vertical lists—capitalization, punctuation, and format
- Vertical lists punctuated as a sentence
- Vertical lists with multiple levels (outlines)