Other Punctuation Day ​(AKA “Emoji Day”)

Everything You Did ​(or didn’t) ​Want to Know About

Punctuation—And why you should care

“Ethos”—your reputation
Why does grammar and punctuation matter to your reputation?
1. It shows you know what you’re doing
2. Bad punctuation can come across as informal instead of formal

Strategies for editing and proofreading your papers

1. Use all our worksheets and notes from this class to experiment and
practice
2. Leave extra time before turning in a paper to edit and proofread
3. Have other people help you edit and proofread

Semicolon (;)
Rule 1: Use a semicolon to combine two complete sentences.

The student studied hard for the test; he passed.

CS + ; + CS.

Rule 2: Use a semicolon in place of some commas to avoid confusion.

On Saturday, we went to the movies, seeing ​Cars 3​, visited grandma, and she talked for
hours about shoelaces, and traveled to St. Louis, where we met the actors from ​Hamilton​.

On Saturday, we went to the movies, seeing ​Cars 3​; visited grandma, and she talked for
hours about shoelaces; and traveled to St. Louis, where we met the actors from ​Hamilton​.

Colons (:)
Colons are like arrows. To use them, you need to have a complete sentence on the left. Most of
the time, the right-hand side will be an incomplete sentence.

I hate three kinds of food → tuna, salmon, and shrimp.

I hate three kinds of food: tuna, salmon, and shrimp.
There was only one reason for the Civil War: people couldn’t give up slavery.
They had six sons: Henry, Moses, Jason, Julius, Samson, and Biff.
The following four components make up a complete worldview: 1) epistemology,
2)metaphysics, 3) ethics, and 4) socio-political.

Dashes
Em Dash (ctrl + alt + minus sign on numeric keyboard or alt + 0151): —
Use it to show an interruption in the main flow of the sentence.
The kids--who got ice cream--were happy.
1 Corinthians 5:11
Galatians 2:6

En Dash (ctrl + minus sign on numeric keyboard or alt + 0150): – (1997–2014)

Genesis 1:1–7
Hyphen (minus sign): - This is a super-cool day!
email

Other Punctuation Rules (!, &, /, …, ​( ) ​)

! Use this sparingly!
& Never use this.
/ Never use this.
… Ellipses are used to show something trailing off or something that has been
omitted.
( ) Parentheses are used to provide an “aside” or an in-text citation

Apostrophes
1. Show possession (rules for singular and plural words are different)
2. Show contraction
Quotation Marks
Basic Rules:
1. Commas separating speaker tag (or introductory phrase) from quoted
material (tag can go anywhere within quoted material)
a. He said, “How are you?”
b. “The duck is attacking you shoe,” he said.
c. The author says, “Be still my soul.”
2. Use double quotations around quoted material in dialogue or sources
3. End quotation mark goes outside of punctuation
a. He says, “I always take a walk at night; it’s cooler.”
4. If a character talks for more than one paragraph, omit end quotation mark to
show he/she hasn’t finished speaking. Then start new paragraph starting with
quotation marks.
5. Alternate between double and single quotation marks for quotes within
quotes
6. Speaker tags may be dropped if speakers have been identified (double check
that it is clear!)
Quotation Mark Example Story
“I will crush you,” said Burble the Bad. He was really ugly, and he smelled like burnt
rubber bands.
“You can’t crush me,” said Hugglebee, “​cuz​ I’m too cute.”
“Doesn’t matter. I want to crush you.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“I will now make a speech to show the class how to punctuate dialogue speeches.”
“Wait—what?”
“Dialogue speeches.”
“Actually, it’s called a monologue.”
“Okay. Whatever.”
Burble the Bad cleared his throat and began, “I will now talk about how to punctuate
dialogue.
“The first thing to keep in mind is to write a new paragraph every time a new character
speaks. This will help the reader distinguish between characters during a conversation.
“Another thing to keep in mind is you always need to put punctuation inside quotation
marks; this includes commas, periods, question marks, exclamation marks, etc..
“Capitalization is a little tricky, though. You should capitalize the first letters of complete
sentences. So, figure out when your characters finish a complete sentence and capitalize the first
letter of their next sentence. Sometimes the narrator will interrupt a character,” ​continued Burble
the Bad​, “in the middle of a sentence, and in that case, don’t capitalize the first letter because it’s
not a new sentence.”
“That’s why the students learned complete sentences before learning this, huh?”
interrupted Hugglebee.
Burble the Bad sighed. “Yes,” he said. “​M​ay I continue?”
Hugglebee nodded.
Burble the Bad opened his mouth and raised a finger, ready to finish.
“Hi, ​Malachi​!” Hugglebee shouted.
“Hey, shut up!” shouted Burble the bad.
“Sorry.”
“You’re always doing this.”
“Sorry. I just--”
“What?”
“I just can’t help myself sometimes.”
“Can I continue?”
“I dunno. Can you?”
Crush!
Hugglebee stumbled around, his head looking like an accordion.
“That’ll teach you,” said Burble the Bad, putting away his hammer. “Anyway,” he
continued, “like I was saying: ‘​don’t capitalize the first letter because it’s not a new sentence​.’
“But now I’m going to move on. When you put a quote within a quote use single
quotations.”
“What about a quote within a quote within a quote?” asked Hugglebee, stretching out his
face to its normal shape.
“You just keep alternating them.”
“Oh, okay. So, for example, I could say, ‘My mom told me, “Never walk around with an
accordion head.”’”
“Yes.”
“This is confusing.”
“Just stop talking, Hugglebee.” Burble the Bad shook his head. “Look, everyone, I’m
sorry. I just—” He sighed. “I quit. Just look at our conversation for any other rules about
punctuating dialogue.”
“And be creative!” shouted Hugglebee.
“Shut up!”