No comma before “and”

Perfect Punctuation and “to”

Other uses: Comma , …books, pencils and

Capital Letters Some abbreviations (Mr, Prof.) • Separating words in a list pens
• Beginning of any Acronyms (UNESCO) Full stop/ • Indicates where one phrase
sentence Continent, countries, cities, Susan went back to
Period . or clause ends and another
streets (John Vorster Drive)
• Proper Nouns begins school, to fetch her bag.
Rivers, mountains, oceans, • End of a
• Proper Adjectives sentence • Additional information
deserts Thomas, the goalkeeper,
• Titles of books, lms separated by a comma from
Ships (Queen Mary) • After certain saved the day.
or plays the rest of the sentence
Businesses (Ford Motor abbreviations
• First word in Direct Company) • Before and after words like They arrived, however, too
Speech Celestial bodies (Jupiter, Mars) “however” and late to watch the game.
Signi cant historical events “nevertheless”
(Second World War) Abbreviations • Introductory words or As always, the teacher
Single-letter pre xes (T-shirt) If an abbreviation ends in phrases separated from the blamed me.
the last letter of the word, rest of the sentence
Quotation marks “” the full stop is omitted.
Book and lm titles can be Mister - Mr
or ‘’ Semi-colon ;
written in single quotation Professor - Prof.
• Direct Speech He waited by the door; he • A long pause,
marks. Modern usage is to No full stop in initialisms - wants to enter the room.
• Repeating or quoting USA balancing two parallel
underline these titles.
someone’s direct Angus loves hockey; he ideas
words hates swimming. • Indicates antithesis
• Used when using slang My friend loves to ‘photo (opposites)
or foreign words in Julie looked forward to the • Joins two main clauses
bomb’ all our photos.
weekend; she needed to
formal text Exclamation marks ! (no conjunction)
rest
• Metaphoric usage He can be such a ‘baby’
• Indicate emotions: anger,
on the rugby eld.
surprise, anxiety Semi-colons are often replaced
• Follow exclamations and by a full stop or conjunction.
interjections
Question marks ? • Indicate a command
• At the end of a question • Strengthen tone of Colon :
• Rhetorical questions sentence • Indicates a list to follow
• Introduces a quotation
• In dialogue, colon introduces the speaker
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 Perfect Punctuation
Hyphen -
• Links pre xes to anti-climax, re-do Bullets
words • Itemise points
• Links two words to well-known, life- • Used instead of numbers and
form compound threatening letters
words • Incomplete sentences
Ellipsis is only
• Omit punctuation
used in informal
If the pre x and word both start
language
with a vowel, a hyphen is used, e.g.
pre-admission, re-enter, no-one
Ellipsis …
• Indicates an incomplete If you fail to follow the
Parenthesis (Brackets)
Commas or sentence instructions, you will see
• Additional information, giving an
dashes can • Reader can guess what what happens…
explanation
be used the author means
instead of
parentheses
The All Blacks (the best rugby team
A tsunami is caused by an Italics
in the world) will play against the
Springboks. earthquake. Highlight or emphasise a
Our family enjoyed the word or phrase
musical Annie.

These children should be Dash —

grateful — they have so Handwritten titles are usually in
• Separates parts of a sentence,
many opportunities.
creating a pause inverted commas or underlined. If
Watch out for the dog — the
one with the red collar. • Additional information typed on a computer, titles are usually
We had to wait an hour for • Separates a comment or an in italics or bold.
our food — it was de nitely afterthought from the rest of the
worth it!
sentence
He slowly opened the door
and there it was — the • Creates a dramatic pause or
snake! anti-climax

Adapted from “English Handbook and Study Guide”- September 2015, Berlut Books
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