Punctuation: Hyphens, Dashes, Parentheses

1. Use a hyphen to divide a word at the end of a line, compound numbers and some prefixes.
Ex. Mother-in-law

 2. Use a dash to indicate a break in thought or speech, an unfinished statement, or question.
Ex. Ana – the new student – came today.

 3. Use parentheses to enclose material that is added to a sentence but it's not of mayor importance.
Ex. Ana(latin girl) came to my class.

Punctuation: Apostrophes

1. Use apostrophes with singular possessive nouns,plural possessive nouns, possessive personal pronouns, possessive indefinite pronouns, possessive compound nouns, nouns that show joint possession, nouns that show individual possession, contractions, plurals of letters, and words referred to as words.
Ex. That bag is Carol's.

Punctuation: Italics and Quotation Marks

1. Use italics for titles of items and for words, letters and figures referred to as such and for foreign words.
Ex. I plan to quote The New York Times.

2. Direct quotations are enclosed with quotation marks, capital letters, set off by commas, question marks or exclamation points.
Ex. The teacher said, "Put everything away."

 3. When a quoted sentence is divided into two parts by an interrupting expression, the second part begins with a small letter.
Ex. "I saw," she said, "them taking it."

 4. Commas and periods are always placed inside closing quotation marks.
Ex. "I haven't read the book," said Anna, "but I would like to."

5. Semicolons and colons are always placed outside closing quotation marks.
Ex. Anna said, "I hope we're not lost"; Calvin ignored her.

6. Question marks and exclamation points are placed inside the closing quotation marks if the quotation is a question or an exclamation; other wise, they are placed outside.
Ex. "Yeah!" said Diana.

7. When you write a dialogue begin a new paragraph everytime when the speaker changes.
Ex. "Who's that?" asked Sam.
 "Who's who?" said Anna.

8. When a quoted passage consists of more than one paragraph put quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph and at the end of the entire passage.
Ex. "Saturday night," said Anna, "they lost their dog. They forgot to put its leash on and it ran away.
There have been no news of it and the family is worried."

9. Use single quotation marks to enclose a quotation within a quotation.
Ex. "Don't tell me, 'That's not the way to do it'."

10. Use quotation marks to enclose titles of articles, short stories, essays, poems, songs, individual episodes of TV shows, chapters, and other parts of books or periodicals.
Ex. "Punishment" is one of my favourite chapters.

Punctuation: Semicolons and Colons

1. Use a semicolon between independent clauses if they aren't joined by and, but, or, not, for, so or yet.
Ex. Calvin drives; Anna gives him instructions.

2. Use a semicolon between independent clauses joined by conjunctive adverbs or transitional expressions.
Ex. She was sick; however, she played well.

3. Use a semicolon to separate independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction when there are commas within the clauses.
Ex. Ana, Sara and Jen took it; and Sam and Alex didn't.

4. Use a semicolon between items if the items contain commas.
Ex. The group will visit Seoul, Korea; Tokyo, Japan; and Hong Kong, China.

4. Use a colon to mean "note what follows."
Ex. Bring the following items: clothes, toothbrush, shoes, and shampoo.

5. Use a colon in certain conventional situations.
Ex. 9:45 AM

Punctuation: End Marks and Commas

1. Declarative, abreviations and some imperative sentences are followed by a period.
Ex. She won.

2. An interrogative sentence is followed by a question mark.
Ex. Are you there?

3. Exclamations and some imperative sentences are followed by an exclamation mark.
Ex. Close that door!

4. Use commas to separate items, adjectives, and independent clauses.
Ex. They brought chips, soda, and ice cream.

5. Use commas to set off nonessential clauses, nonessential participial phrases, sentences interrupters, appositives, appositive phrases, words used in direct address, and parenthetical expressions.
Ex. Ana, hoping to win, tried her best.

6. Use commas in certain conventional situations.
Ex. Ana Harris, Ms.

7. Use a comma after an introductory element.
Ex. No, they're not attending.