Punctuation in a Nutshell

What’s that in the road, a head? Punctuation in a Nutshell If you look in any handbook of English grammar and composition, you will notice that the chapter on punctuation tends to be lengthy. The following summary of punctuation and its conventional uses has been put together from a variety of sources: handbooks, histories of English language, and notes from in-class student presentations. The guide is designed as a reference for you to use when you are writing assignments. Expanded information on punctuation can be found in any number of English grammar handbooks, so if you cannot find what you are looking for here, you can check elsewhere. INTRODUCTION Punctuation performs several different functions; generally, marks of punctuation are used to: 1. Separate thoughts or phrases 2. Introduce words or elements in a sentence 3. Enclose information within a sentence 4. Show omission 5. Indicate speech 6. Emphasize words or sentence elements 7. End a sentence, ask a question, or complete a thought The marks of punctuation that will be covered in your guide are the comma, the semi‐colon, the colon, the dash, parentheses, quotation marks, brackets, ellipsis, italics, capitals and the apostrophe. You’re on your own when it comes to end punctuation (periods, question marks and exclamation points). NOTE: Many of the examples (in green) for this sheet have been quoted from the following source; others, where indicated, are sentences that have been reworked to exemplify the particular punctuation: Jacob, T., Indriati, E., Soejono, R.P., Hsu, K., Frayer, D.W., Eckhardt, R.B., … Hennenberg, M. (2006). Pygmoid Australomelanesian Homo sapiens skeletal remains from Liang Bua, Flores: Population affinities and pathological abnormalities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(36), 13421‐13426. THE COMMA The comma is probably one of the most widely used and widely misused marks of punctuation. Writers often pepper their prose with commas, presumably thinking that lots of commas make their sentences sound more authoritative. If you have this form of comma-itis, remember: if you think there should be a comma, most likely, there shouldn’t. Commas do, however, have specific uses: In sentences, commas i) separate, ii) introduce, iii) enclose, or iv) show omission. i) to separate: If you use a word or phrase to preface the main idea in a sentence, separate the main idea from the introduction with a comma: In 2004, skeletal material from the Indonesian island of Flores was described as the holotype of a new hominin taxon, Homo floresiensis (Jacob et al, 13421). Largely complete but for the missing lateral condyle, it has a prominent lesser trochanter with lipping in its anterior portion (Jacob et al, 13424). Although LB1 exhibits a very small skull and numerous anomalies, other skeletons that also exhibited serious abnormalities were not used to establish new species, a point implicit in our initial publication (Jacob et al, 13421). ‐ Use a comma to separate two independent clauses that you have joined with a coordinating conjunction.* Note that the comma goes before the coordinating conjunction: The nuchal torus is markedly asymmetrical, and the antimeric mastoid regions differ greatly (Jacob et al, 13423). * Coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases or clauses of equal grammatical rank. They are: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet ‐ Also use a comma to separate words or phrases in a list: Associated signs [of microcephaly] include facial asymmetry and dental anomalies, as well as trunk/limb disproportions, over-tubulated bones, and signs of paresis in the postcranial skeleton (Jacob et al, 13423). ii) to introduce: Use a comma when introducing a short quotation: As described originally and confirmed by us, “[w]ith the exception of the squamous suture, most of the cranial vault sutures are difficult to locate and this problem persists in computed (CT) scans” (Jacob et al, 13423). iii) to enclose: Sometimes, you might want to include parenthetical information (interesting, but not required for grammatical sense) that is not necessary to the sentence’s meaning. If these words or phrases are included in the middle of your sentence, then the whole phrase or word is separated on either side by commas: H. erectus previously was held to have reached the island ≈840,000 years ago, on the basis of Middle Pleistocene stone tools found on Flores, remaining totally isolated while giving rise to H. floresiensis (Jacob et al., 13421). THE SEMI‐COLON The semi‐colon is a mark of separation or division. It is a stronger mark than a comma, with a greater break between sentence elements, but is weaker than a period, as shown with the period mark over a comma. A semi‐colon indicates that two or more statements are not close enough to require a comma, but are closely related enough in meaning to be joined in the same sentence. A semi‐colon is never used as a mark of introduction, so you know not to begin an email or letter with Dear Prof X;. Here are the common uses of the semi‐colon: i) to separate independent clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction*: The right tibia is complete; the left tibia lacks both proximal epiphysis and medial malleolus (paraphrased, Jacob et al, 13425). * Coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases or clauses of equal grammatical rank. They are: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet ii) to separate independent clauses joined by a conjunctive adverb:** Premature elaboration of speculative evolutionary scenarios diverted attention from detailed study of the morphological characteristics of the specimens; furthermore, all but lost was any realization that the species diagnosis itself was centered on a single, distinctly odd, individual (Reworked from Jacob et al, 13421). ** Conjunctive adverbs (also called adverbial conjunctions) are adverbs that are used to relate and connect two independent clauses in a sentence. A partial list of typical conjunctive adverbs includes: consequently, conversely, for example, furthermore, however, indeed, instead, moreover, nevertheless, subsequently, therefore. Consult a handbook for a full list and more information about how to use them. iii) to separate clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction if the clauses are long or contain commas: At glacial maxima, water gaps between the islands decreased due to lowering sea‐levels, caused by an increase of polar ice‐volumes; Bali was contiguous with Java; and a transient unitary land mass connected Sumbawa through Komodo and Rinca to Flores, leaving water gaps of just several kilometers on either side of Lombok (Reworked from Jacob et al, 13422). THE COLON The colon is a mark of introduction; it indicates that what follows the colon will explain, clarify or illustrate the statement that precedes it. As well as being a mark of introduction, a colon is used to separate items in subtitles, titles, scriptural and literary citations, divisions of time, and after the salutation in a business letter. Common uses of the colon include: i) to introduce lists: Problems with the Flores “hobbits”: H. floresiensis would have to exist in genetic isolation to develop as a separate species; their small brain size precludes they would have had the ability to craft tools for survival; and it is not certain that hominins would have reached Flores only once in >800 ka (Reworked from Jacob et al, 13421). ii) to introduce formal quotations: Taylor (1978) verifies a trait of teeth that occurs worldwide: “lower premolars represent wide variation [in H sapiens and] there is no such thing as a premolar that is typical of its group” (Reworked from Jacob et al, 13424). iii) to separate a main clause and another sentence element when the second one explains, illustrates or amplifies the first: Data for the maxillary dentition do not differ from this assessment: tooth size is not discordant with H. sapiens, as documented in the original report (Reworked from Jacob et al, 13423). iv) to separate items in divisions of time, subtitles, titles, scriptural and references or works cited listings: Pygmoid Australomelanesian Homo sapiens skeletal remains from Liang Bua, Flores: Population affinities and pathological abnormalities. PARENTHESES AND THE DASH Parentheses and the dash are both internal marks of punctuation that are used to set off interrupting comments, explanations, examples, and other similar parenthetical asides from a sentence’s main thought. The dash tends to be more dramatic and thus should be used sparingly for best effect, especially in academic writing. In fact, the dash and parentheses should be reserved for special occasions as they interrupt the normal flow of thought and rhythm of the writing. Parentheses are always used in pairs; dashes can be used singularly or in pairs, depending on what the dash is doing in the sentence. Parentheses also have a special application in essay writing as many documentation styles use parentheses to enclose a citation to acknowledge the writer’s source for a fact or direct quotation. Use parentheses: i) to enclose numbers or letters that label items within sentences: It raises a number of questions: (1) If brain sizes smaller than average for chimpanzees were normal for the new species, how were these hominins able to manufacture stone microblades postulated to haven hafted as compound tools? (2) How could such tools, convergent in detail with those made by H. sapiens elsewhere but similar only in broad commonalities to earlier tools onFlores not raise the question of contact between populations? (3) How likely was it that Flores was reached by hominins only once during >800 ka? (Reworked from Jacob et al, 13422). ii) in your essays/papers to enclose referenced information or a reference number: In living African pygmies, for example, spatial and genetic isolation manifestly is incomplete (37) (Jacob et al, 13422). iii) in your full reference/works cited or bibliography to enclose material as required by the documentation style you are using: 36.

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