PUNCTUATION CHEAT SHEET



PUNCTUATION CHEAT SHEET

How to use your COLON:

• Introducing a series/list or appositive (don’t use after “such as” “especially” “including” and don’t use between a verb and its object) Make sure you have a complete sentence BEFORE the colon.

o If you are going to live in Steamboat, you need to enjoy a few key things: snow, snow, snow, and snow.

• Introducing a quotation

o Mrs. Bell continually says this to herself: “I feel great; I feel fine; I feel this way all the time.”

• Going from a general statement to a specific statement or introducing an explanation/example or for emphasis.

o Remember what the old saying prudently advises: Be careful what you wish for because you may actually get it.

o There is one thing that I like about you: your smile.

• Separating elements

o (Salutations) Dear Mrs. Bell:

o (Hours, minutes, seconds) 4:29 p.m.

o (Ratios) a ratio of 5:1

o (Bible chapters and verses) Genesis 3:3

o (Titles and subtitles) The Joy of Insight: Passions of a Physicist

Semicolon (it’s not less than a colon):

• Use a semicolon to join two or more closely related independent clauses (complete sentences) – you don’t usually use a conjunction (FANBOYS) in this case.

o I did not call myself a poet; I told people I wrote poems

• Use before a conjunctive adverb (with a comma after) when the word connects two independent clauses.

o I am faced with my imminent demise; therefore, life becomes a very precious thing.

o List of conjunctive adverbs…also, besides, finally, however, indeed, instead, meanwhile, moreover, next still, then, therefore

• To separate groups of words that already contain commas.

o Every night my brother gathers up his things: goggles, shower cap, and snorkel; bubble bath, soap, and shampoo; tapes, deck, and speakers.

Comma(sutra):

• Use a comma to set apart introductory words, phrases, clauses (as in a complex sentence with the dependent clause first)

o Honestly, it’s cold.

o To win the game, Jenny needed skill and luck.

o Although I love chocolate, I can’t eat any now.

• To separate clauses in a compound sentence by using a comma and conjunction (using a comma without the conjunction is called a comma splice)

o I love chocolate, and I will eat some now.

o Common conjunctions…FANBOYS – for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

• To set off a nonrestrictive (not necessary) element or an appositive (renames the subject)

o Alicia, my sister, is eighteen.

o The two drivers involved in the accident, who have been convicted of drunken driving, should lose their license.

Comma continued…

• To separate coordinating adjectives that describe the same noun.

o The icy, slick road led to the ski resort.

• To separate items in a series/list (comma before the last item is optional)

o I ate pizza, milk, peas, and carrots

• To set off most quotations

o “All I know about grammar,” said Joan Didion, “is its infinite power.”

Dash(it-all):

• Use a dash to indicate a sudden break or change in the sentence or parenthetical material.

o Near the semester’s end – and this is not always due to poor planning – some students may find themselves in a real crunch.

• To set off an introductory series/list

o A good book, a cup of tea, a comfortable chair – these things always save my sanity.

• To indicate interrupted speech

o John, why are you –

• For emphasis (the colon and dash are interchangeable here)

o After years of trial and error, Belther made history with his invention – the unicycle.

Use quotes…

• to punctuate titles of songs, poems, short stories, one-act plays, lectures, episodes of radio or tv episodes, chapters of books, song titles, articles from the newspaper/magazine. (small things)

• to emphasize or distinguish a word or a specialized use of a word. (You can also use italics for this)

o Tom pushed the wheelchair across the street, showed the lady his “honest” smile, and stole her purse.

• to punctuate actual quotations.

o Place commas and periods INSIDE quotes unless you are using MLA format parenthetical citations

▪ “I am not very good at math” (Bell 27).

o Place exclamation points and question marks inside quotes when they punctuate the quotation and outside quotes when they punctuate the sentence

▪ “Am I dreaming?”

▪ Had she heard him say, “Here’s the key to your new car”?

o ALWAYS place semicolons or colons OUTSIDE quotation marks.

▪ I wrote about Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”; his other poem was too deep for me.

• When you have a quote within a quote, use single quotation marks.

o Sue asked, “Did you hear him say, ‘I like snow’?”

• For quotes longer than 4 lines, single space, indent whole quotation, and do not use quotation marks.

Use Italics (or underline)…

• to punctuate titles of books, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, full-length plays, films, radio and TV programs, book-length poems, lengthy musicals/operas, CD titles, legal cases, ships, aircraft. (Large things)

• when you use foreign words that have not been adopted into the English language; when you use scientific names.

o The explorers, tough men with natural bonhomie, discovered the shy Castor Canadensis, or North American beaver.

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