Punctuation Perfection

English Punctuation: A Comprehensive Guide

• English punctuation serves two complementary purposes: phonological punctuation and grammatical punctuation.
• There are two broad styles of punctuation in English: British and American.
• Open and closed punctuation are two variants of English punctuation.
• Open punctuation eliminates the need for a period at the end of a stand-alone statement, in an abbreviation or acronym, as well as in components of postal addresses.
• Closed punctuation is common in presentations, advertising, marketing materials, news headlines, and signage.
• The apostrophe is used to mark possession and to mark letters omitted in contractions.
• Brackets are used for parenthesis, explanation, or comment.
• The colon is used to start an enumeration and between two clauses when the second clause clarifies the first.
• The comma is used to disambiguate the meaning of sentences, by providing boundaries between clauses and phrases.
• The dash and hyphen are used to indicate a range, a pause, or a break in thought.
• The exclamation mark is used to mark an exclamation.
• The full point or full stop is used to mark the end of a sentence and to indicate abbreviation.