Punctuation I

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Punctuation I
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Punctuation

• Punctuation in English writing is like traffic
  lights and traffic signs. It helps the reader
  understand what you are writing. The punctuation
  marks used most commonly in English are
• Comma (,) ? Period (.)
• Semicolon () ? Question Mark (?)
• Colon () ? Exclamation point (!)
• Apostrophe () ? Quotation mark ()

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The Comma

• Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction
  (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) when it is used
  to join independent clauses.
• She looks very young, but she is already in her
  30's.
• If the two independent clauses are short and not
  likely to be misread, no comma is needed.
• The plane took off and we were on our way.

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• Use a comma after an introductory clause or
  phrase.
• When Sam looked in the path near the school
  building, he found his lost book.
• When Mary was ready to eat, her cat jumped onto
  the table.

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• Use a comma after an introductory participial
  phrase that describes the noun or pronoun that
  follows.
• Struggling with large amounts of homework, the
  class feared the exam.
• Having seen pictures of the beach, the children
  eagerly looked forward to summer.

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Exercise 1.1 add or delete commas

• As the concert began we heard a tremendous
  explosion.
• With their local knowledge and low population
  density the people can fulfill their daily living
  needs by using the natural resources around them.
• Further the steep topography makes most of the
  land very susceptible to erosion.
• Beyond these flat riverside areas low nutrients
  shallow soil poor drainage and high rainfall
  limit the development of large plantations.

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• Use a comma between all items in a series.
• I brought my books, papers, and computer to the
  classroom.
• We will prepare the specimens, conduct the tests,
  and record the data.

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• Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not
  joined with and.
• Same has become a strong, confident, independent
  man.
• The laboratory is a small, windowless, poorly
  lighted room.
• The laboratory is a windowless, poorly lighted,
  small room.
• (Coordinate adjectives can be scrambled.)

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• Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
  
• Three large gray trucks tooled down the street.
• (Cumulative adjectives do not modify a noun
  separately.)
• Three gray large trucks rolled down the street.
• (Do not scramble cumulative adjectives.)

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Exercise 1.2 add or delete commas

• My brother and I found a dead snake picked it up
  and placed it on the teachers doorstep.
• For breakfast the children ordered rice doughnuts
  with peanut butter and chocolate milk.
• The region is not suited for large-scale
  agricultural activities such as planting pepper
  coffee cocoa candlenut and rubber or oil palm.
• An ambulance threaded its way through police cars
  fire trucks and irate citizens.

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• Use commas to set off nonrestrictive elements
• The truck, with its horn blowing loudly, rushed
  through the streets of the city.
• This research, which I began two years ago, is
  beginning to show some interesting results.
• (Removing a nonrestrictive element does not
  greatly change the meaning of the sentence.)

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• Do not use commas to set of restrictive elements.
• A laboratory that is well ventilated is needed
  for this type of research.
• The corner of the laboratory was filled with
  notebooks that dated from ten years ago.
• The novel The Naked and the Dead was Norman
  Mailers first novel.

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• Use commas to set off transitional expressions.
• However, therefore, moreover, for example, as a
  matter of fact, in other words
• As a matter of fact, many of the musicians have
  hearing problems
• Therefore, they frequently need hearing
  assistance.

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• If a transitional expression is between
  independent clauses, precede it with a semicolon
  () and follow it with a comma.
• Natural foods are not always salt free for
  examples, celery contains more salt than most
  people would imagine.
• The new building is not completed however, this
  classroom is air-conditioned.

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• Use commas to set off parenthetical expressions.
• Evolution, as far as we know, doesnt work this
  way.
• The fish weighed about five kilograms, give or
  take a few grams.
• Learning English, unfortunately for students, is
  a complex and frustrating process.

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• Use commas to set off absolute phrases.
• Elvis Presley made music history in the 1950s,
  his records having sold more than ten million
  copies.
• The weather having become very bad, the airplane
  was unable to take off.
• (Of course, these two sentences could be written
  in another way)

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• Use commas to set off contrasting elements.
• Sharp contrasts begin with words such as not,
  never, and unlike.
• Unlike Robert, Celia loved speech contests.
• We use alcohol, never water, to sterilize the
  instruments.

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• Use commas to set off direct address, question
  tags, and interjections.
• Forgive us, Professor, for being late in sending
  our homework.
• Yes, but dont do it again.
• This is the third time you have been late, isnt
  it?
• Well, we sometimes have lots of other homework to
  do.

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• Use commas to set off direct quotations.
• William Shakespeare, in Twelfth Night, said
  God give them wisdom, that have it and those
  that are fools, let them use their talents.
• I know not what course other may take, but, as
  for me, give me liberty or give me death, said
  Patrick Henry before the American Revolution.

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• Use commas to set off dates, addresses, titles,
  and numbers.
• The final examination will be on June 22, 2007.
• C. H. Wong, Ph.D., has been appointed to be the
  President of Academia Sinica.
• The teacher was born in Hualien, Taiwan, in 1960.
• The total price is NTD 23,456.

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• Use commas to avoid confusion.
• To err is human to forgive, divine.
• Of all the baseball games we played, this was the
  worst.
• All of the catastrophes that we feared might
  happen, happened.

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Exercise 1.3 add or delete commas

• We will do our work in the laboratory that is on
  the third floor.
• We will do our work in the chemistry laboratory
  which is on the third floor.
• The surprising thing however was the items that
  sold most quickly.
• Whenever the weather is rainy they wear raincoats
  and boots which keep them dry.
• Although, the air was warm, the water was too
  cold for swimming.
• Come to think of it more than forty years have
  passed since then.

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The Period

• Use a period to end a sentence.
• Bill asked whether our class will be cancelled
  tomorrow.
• The period is a red light or stop sign.
• The period is the most powerful piece of
  punctuation at your disposal. In many scientific
  documents periods are not used often
  enough. Michael Alley The craft of Scientific
  Writing

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• Use a period to improve the flow of writing.
  Sometimes, there are too many ideas packed into
  one sentence. Use periods and shorter sentences
  as follows to improve the flow and understanding.

1. For temperatures above 1100K, the four fuels
had about the same ignition delay when the
ignition delay was defined as the time to recover
the pressure loss from fuel evaporation, in spite
of the large variations in ignition delay among
the four fuels at lower temperatures. 2.
Ignition delay is the time required to recover
the pressure loss from fuel evaporation. Despite
the large variations in ignition delay at lower
temperatures, the four fuels had about the same
ignition delay for temperatures above 1100K.
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• Use a period in conventional abbreviations.
• Mr. (mister) Mrs. (misses)
• Dr. (doctor) Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)
• e.g. (exempli gratia) etc. (et cetera)
• i.e. (id est) p.s. (post scriptum)
• Sometimes the period is omitted in an
  abbreviation using capital letters
• AM PM
• BA MA
• Do not use a period in abbreviating names of
  organizations.
• UN USA WHO
• IBM FAO ILO

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Taipei Basin
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