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Welcome to Punctuation
Junction
Punctuation enhances clarity and readability;
It
can add impact—
or
soften disappointment . . . .
Here are the rules, with examples and
exceptions that apply
to most business documents.
Coming soon:
10 most-misused applications of punctuation marks.
Mastering this quiz is a must for those who desire to be concise
and precise.
It's all part of Steve Toms' upcoming
book,
Stop Boring Us!
(Click the title to learn more.)
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question?
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Keep it
short—period.
The average sentence should
be 11-17 words. To encourage readership,
vary the length
of sentences and paragraphs.
Like this.
A period has a simple task that we learned at an early age. When your
parents said: "That's the way it is—period," we knew that was the end
of the discussion.
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 Tips for business writers:
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No longer necessary to put 2 spaces
after each period. Save the key stroke.
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Place periods after bullet points that express
a complete thought. Fragments don't get one.
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Periods make horrible bullet points.
Use an emdash (see below) or double
hyphen (see Dash
below).
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No periods...
...after contractions |
don't
...ordinal
numbers |
1st
...nicknames
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Barb
...shortened
words |
taxi, ad
...acronyms
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KPRC, TV
...numeral
after names |
Henry VII
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question?
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Commatosis, it is said, is,
and can be, cured.
If
you edit your documents by inserting a comma every time
you
take a breath between periods, you're infected.
The comma is
a relatively weak, overused, and often misused mark.
When in doubt leave it out.
Except
when a word or phrase
following a modifier makes the reader
stop to figure out the
intended meaning. Then, separate them
with a comma:
On
short notice statements will be issued.
(Is that "short notice" or "notice statements"?)
By inserting a comma after "notice," the reader
doesn't
have to stop and reread it for meaning.
On short notice, statements will be issued.
When
your reader understands the meaning of your sentence you can
leave out the comma (as in this sentence, where some might insert
a comma between ". . .sentence, you...").
Omitting commas works best with
short sentences.
To be sure, have someone read it aloud. If there's
a
problem,
they'll stumble or stop reading to figure it out. Add a comma.
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Tips
for business writers:
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While consistency dictates that
items in a series (ex: red,
white, and blue) be preceded by commas, omit the final comma
only if you know
that the reader understands the relationship.
According to
their father's will, drawn up by the family attorney,
siblings
"Harriet, Bill and Eric" were to receive equal shares
of
their father's $4 million estate. Harriet went to court, claiming
that the absence of a comma between Bill and Eric indicated
that her
father wanted the two brothers to get only 50%
of the estate, not
33% each. The judge ruled in her favor:
Harriet got $2 million; Bill and
Eric each got $1 million.
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Titles after names:
Raymond
Hart, Jr.
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Separate short complementary
adjectives for emphasis:
Terry is an efficient hard-working employee.
But, to show equal weight for efficient and hard-work:
Terry is an
efficient, hard-working employee.
The comma creates a pause,
thus emphasis on "efficient."
Formal: He
delivered a speech; then he returned to work.
New:
He delivered a speech, then he returned to work.
Better: He
delivered a speech. He then returned to work.
or
He
delivered a speech, then returned to work.
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Dates: American English places a
comma between the day
and year: April 5, 1948. British,
military, and aviation usage
reorder the elements: day, month, and
year. No punctuation
is required:
5 April 1948.
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question?
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Semicolons divide;
semicolons join.
There's
no reason to fear this mark; let's make it simple.
The semicolon is the
Cleopatra
of Punctuation Marks. It joins 2 complete
thoughts that share something
in common.
He reads Drucker; he speaks Toffler.
The above
example demonstrates the best application of semicolons
in business documents.
Use them sparingly to separate short related
thoughts of less than 9-12 words. The shorter the better.
Proper
use of semicolons signals a higher level of communication.
It raises
your credibility in the mind of the reader.
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 Tips
for business writers:
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Semicolons are stronger than commas; they signal
a stronger break; suggest a longer pause; but even
so, are weaker than a
period.
Semicolons:
— gives a feeling of expectancy;
— hey, read on;
— there's more to come to make it clear.
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Semicolons bring order to strings of commas.
Attending the morning session are
Dan,
Lanette, and Marianna; Andres and
Shirley
prefer the afternoon workshop.
He toured Madrid, Spain; and Paris, France.
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Colons: they fulfill
promises.
Colons signal
what's to come and introduce long lists.
It's a rather
strong mark that tells the reader: pay attention.
Watch out:
> here's
why. . . .
That said: >
now I'll tell you what's really important. . . .
Dear Sir Edgar: >
what follows is serious or formal. . . .
The
greatest misuse of colons is after prepositions or linking verbs:
NO
> Your trip is approved
to: Paris, Madrid, and Milan.
YES
> Your trip is approved to Paris, Madrid, and Milan.
or...
YES > Your
trip itinerary is approved: Paris, Madrid, and Milan.
NO
> The committee's choice of colors
are: red, blue, and green.
YES
> The
committee's choice of colors are red, blue, and green.
or...
YES
> The committee chose these colors: red, blue, and green.
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Tips
for business writers:
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Don't place colons after prepositions—with 1 exception.
Use them to introduce a series of 1 or 2-word bullet lists:
The supply cabinet is in need of:
· pens
· paperclips
· tape
· rubber bands
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Use colons to set up long quotes (+3-4 lines).
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In letters, there's a significant difference
between a colon
and comma in the salutation:
Dear
Steve:
(respect; serious content to follow)
Dear
Steve,
(informal or friendly relationship)
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What's missing after question marks?
Effective business documents are concise and precise.
Thus,
the only effective use of a question mark is to set up an answer
that
immediately follows this mark. Or it can serve to act as a rhetorical
question to which the reader
already knows the answer.
When used
to request action, make sure you tell the reader who, when,
where, and in what form the action should
be taken.
Imagine receiving the following from your boss:
In
our next staff meeting on Tuesday, we'll address:
How to lower overhead?
Does
this mean:
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Think up some
answers in your spare time?
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Write them down and
bring them to the meeting?
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Submit
3 recommendations via email
no later than Noon on Monday?
Time
and energy are wasted when responses fail to provide answers.
Replace the question mark with the specific request? To ensure
efficacy,
give an example of the type of response you seek.
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question?
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Exclamations
in business
are horrific!
When you use this mark on a business document, you're either laughing
at your own
joke or telling the reader you didn't take time to find
the precise
words to express your thought. In other words, you're lazy.
Remember our former president's memos!
Better to list the specifics in those memos.
I'll
make sure this never happens again!!!
This is the ultimate
cosmic joke: what's the difference
between 1 and 3 exclamation or question marks???
This mark
serves no purpose in business
communications.
Focus emphasis by placing the important text in bold or color.
Better
yet, find the precise words or phrase that makes this mark
unnecessary.
In Word software, access your thesaurus (Shift+F7).
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question?
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Dash—the
thought.
It's a sudden
interruption—a sharp break—a shift in thought.
When
overused, it loses impact and conveys a gushy
emotional style.
You're bound to see all kinds of dashes in business documents;
most are
incorrectly structured.
First, there are several
ways to display a dash:
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- This is a hyphen (the key to the right
of "0"). It's not a
dash.
It's used to indicate a syllable break within a word. Hyphens
always
appear at the end of a line.
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–
This is an endash, slightly
longer than a hyphen.
It's used to signal a continuing relationship, as in
marking dates:
January–March.
To insert an endash in your Word document, turn on your number
key, hold the
ALT key, input 0150 on the number pad. The mark should appear.
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—
This is an emdash, the
longest dash.
It's used in place of 2 hyphens to indicate a pause,
or to separate phrases—like this—in a sentence.
To insert an emdash in your Word document, turn on your number
key, hold the
ALT key, input 0151 on the number pad. The mark should appear.
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(A parentheses is
like a dash, but softer.)
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It's a digression or amplification in the middle of another thought.
It signals the
reader that what's inside a parentheses can be eliminated
without affecting the meaning of the sentence. In
business documents,
parentheses encourage readers to stop reading. (See Bracket
for more.)
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Tips
for business writers:
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If
you can't create en- or emdashes, use a double
hyphen (--).
And turn off the auto-hyphen feature in your Word software
program. Keeping words intact and on the same line
improves readability.
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Many technical book authors abhor the
use of 2 hyphens
as emdashes, branding the writer as "lazy." Using the proper
en- and emdash signals your reader you know the rules
and how to apply them.
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Never use a dash and comma together—-the dash is stronger.
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Leave no spaces before, between, or after a dash (as above).
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question? |
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Quotations say
“who.”
Among those who know how to properly place
these marks,
misuse of quotation marks discredits your message and your credibility.
Abandon logic on how these marks should be
displayed. Learn and follow
these simple rules.
But first, there are 2 sets of rules.
American placement is decidedly
different than British-influenced
countries such as the U.K., Australia,
and New Zealand.
Take TV's Jeopardy.
Though a U.S.–inspired game show,
it applies
British rules when displaying anything in quotation marks, all
because
the first head writer was a Brit. It's just tradition.
You can avoid
this mark by setting quotes in italics, a different color,
or using a different typestyle. Establish a set of rules for your document
and
apply them consistently.
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Tips
for American
business writers:
He could not spell the word "precedence."
Her flight arrives at gate
"A".
Avoid the dilemma. Reformat:
He could not
spell the word precedence.
Her flight arrives at
Gate
A.
(different color or bold text)
"Happiness is the
ideal"—follow your passion.
("Happiness is the ideal"); follow your passion.
"Happiness is the ideal"; follow your passion.
"Happiness is the ideal": Follow your passion.
Sid asked, "When will the project be
completed?"
Place them inside when the question applies to the
whole
sentence in which the quote appears.
Did Sid ask, "When will the project be
done"?
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For quotes extending beyond a single paragraph,
place them at the beginning of each new paragraph,
and at the end of the final paragraph.
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Same rules apply to quotes within other
quotes:
Nathalie said,
"I read the article 'Beyond Excellence.'"
> "Arial
font double quotation marks on keyboard."
To
insert quotation marks: turn on the number lock key,
place cursor where you want to quotation marks to appear,
and type:
Alt+0147, Enter >
“ .....beginning
set of quotation marks
Alt+0148,
Enter >
”
.... ending set of quotation marks
Alt+0145, Enter >
‘
....single beginning quotation mark
Alt+0146, Enter >
’
....single ending quotation mark
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question? |
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An ellipse signals
something's missing. . .
Be leery when you see this mark.
Something is missing. Someone has altered the content, or stopped
before telling
you how it's going to end. Sometimes, it changes the
meaning of the message.
In
business, ellipses work best when the reader already has a
familiarity
with the information and knows what's missing. It speeds readability.
But
overuse may lead the reader to question the validity of the content.
And it also makes your text more difficult to read. Think of it as
someone
who doesn't finish his thoughts.
Ellipses
are formed by placing a space before and after 3-4 periods:
NO
>
During the
semester...students improved.
YES
> During the
semester
. . . students
improved.
Because the appearance of an ellipse is cause for caution, try
to avoid it
in your business documents.
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Tips
for business writers:
Al was in the
plant. Out of nowhere, we
heard a
crash.
After running there
. . .
nothing seemed different.
The deficit ran
out of control . . . .
We couldn't believe it!
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Though
a full thought should include a fourth period,
you may use 3 to indicate a soft ending or trailing off . . .
(like
this)
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. . .
if you begin a quote in the middle
of a sentence, use 3 at the beginning.
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Several
credible references say to use a full line
of periods when omitting portions of quotes
that are longer than a paragraph.
Others recommend the use of 4
periods.
Punctuation Junction says:
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Unless
you’re drafting a technical report
or proposal,
you’re unlikely to refer
to multi-paragraph quotes. Use 4
periods.
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A
full line of periods is an obscure rule
that few know about . .
. or follow.
Use 4 periods.
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He [Steve] says brackets impare [sic]*
readability.
Brackets enclose comments, criticisms, or corrections inserted
by
someone other than the original writer or speaker.
Anyone who met him [the
author] respected his authority.
I think the day was
the 3rd [4th] that you were here.
* A bracketed sic [meaning "thus in the original"] indicates
an
error
in the original quoted material ("impare is misspelled: "impair").
"i [sic]
felt very bad." < "I" should
be capitalized.
"He was a nown [sic] criminal."
< misspelling "known"
Brackets are a literary device for
editing and clarification
of manuscripts.
From time to time you may see them in business
documents, often
misused in place of parentheses or dashes. (See Dash for
the proper use
of parentheses.)
Avoid them by using a different font or
color to indicate suggestions
or corrections by your proofreaders.
For those who wish to be creative, it's okay
to use brackets for all kinds
of purposes. Just use them consistently to avoid confusing your reader.
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