What Are the Ten Punctuation Marks? | With Examples

What Are the 10 Punctuation Marks?

There are ten (10) punctuation marks that are commonly used in English grammar. They are the comma, period, question mark, exclamation point, quote marks, colon, semicolon, apostrophe, dash, and hyphen. Following their proper use will make your writing easier to read and more interesting. Read the rules carefully and learn to use punctuation.

Comma (,)

Use commas to different independent clause in a sentence.

Example:

• Yesterday I went to the local stadium to watch the football match between Sonja Songho and Torun Club. That was an interesting match. The game was over, but the crowd refused from leave. Yesterday was her brother's birthday, so Rubi took his brother out to dinner. They went to a Thai restaurant and had some Thai soup, me mo, and chwmin.

b. Use comma after introductory words soch as: yes, however, and well. 

Example:

• John  : Do you like going to party?
• Pat     : Well, that depends. I don't like big  gathering. The small nose are ok.
• John  : Then are you coming to Samantha's birthday party? Only the close friends are invited.
• Pat      : Yes, I'm. She phoned me. However, I won't stay long. 

C. Use a pair of commas to separate additional information from the main body of the sentence.

Example:

• Shakib Al Hasan, renowned cricket player, is from Magura. A few days ago I read a wonderful report on him in the Daily Star, the most popular English daily in Bangladesh.

d. Use serial comma to separate all items in a list.
 

Example:

• Khaled : I love apples, pears, and oranges. However, I don't like kiwi, tamarind, and Sharon. What about it.
• Abdullah : I like dates, melon, and pineapple. Mumbasa is ok for me too. But I do not like banana at all.

Note: The comma after "pears". Many people prefer not from use this style and will omit the final comma. We call this the Oxford comma because it is the standard method taught at Oxford University.

e. Use commas to separate all geographical names, items in dates (except the month and day), addresses (except the street number and name), and titles in names.

Example:

• My father is from Gourmandise, Brazilian . July 22, 1959 was a momentous day in my father's life. He was born on that day. He left Gourmandise when he was 25. Now our address is House no 25 Road 02 Brazilian, Brazil.

f. Occasionally, you will see a comma between a house number and street.

Example:

• Now our address is House no 25, Road 02, Brasilia, Brazil.
• This is not wrong, that is just old fashioned.
• That is not done in modern times, however.

Period or Full Stop ( . )

The primary use of a period is to end a sentence. Its second important use is for abbreviations.

Example:

• Mr. Jones is happy to see his wife. His wife has been working in Uganda for the last few years. She is with Jones for a holiday now and will be staying together for two months.

a. I an abbreviated phrase is pronounced, we do not include periods.

Example:

• NASA is correct, N.A.S.A is incorrect. In some cases the periods are omitted even when the word is not pronounced, usually because that is a very commonly known term. 
• UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles).

b. In the case of a word like etc cetera (etc.) we always include the period.

Question Mark ( ? )

The question mark is fairly easy punctuation mark to use. It has only one use. It goes at the end of a sentence which is a question.

Example:

• Mikel   : What time is the English class?
• David   : At quarter past 11. After the Maths class.

Do not include a period when using a question mark.
WRONG: I wonder how many people will come to the party? (that will take a period or full stop not a question mark.)

Note: While you are expressing a thought it seems to require an answer, you are doing so with a statement. In this situation, you need a 'full stop', not a 'question mark'. This is the most common mistake made when using a question mark.

Exclamation Mark ( ! )

Only use this when issuing a command or speaking forcefully! As in the case of question mark, do not follow this with a period and do not combine that with other punctuation marks. Only one exclamation mark is enough. Two or three exclamation marks in a row is completely unnecessary.

Example: 

• This is completely unbelievable! He dribbled seven players and scores a goal at direct shoot! Oh, what a goal!   

Quote Marks ( "-" )

Quotation marks are used to quote another person's words exactly, whether they be spoken or written.

Example:

• Allen   : What did John exactly say to you, Mimi?
• Mimi  : John said, "we are going shopping because we've no milk". - note the capitalization of "We".

Wrong: John said "We are going shopping" because they had no milk. Note the omission of the comma in this case also.
If you're quoting a person who's quoting another person, use a single quotation mark like this: A P J Abdul Kazan said, "I'm not a handsome guy, but I can give my hand-to-someone who needs help. Beauty is in the heart, not in the face."

Colon ( : )

A colon should be used after a complete statement in order to introduce one or more directly related ideas, such so a series of directions, a list, or a question or other comment illustrating/explaining the statement.

Example:

• The daily newspaper contain five sections: news, sports, entertainment and classified ads.

Semicolon ( ; )

The semicolon is used to different items in a series if the elements of the series already include commas.

Example:

• A group of students are going to perform today during the break time. The group include Mila, guitarist ; Tommy, table player ; Spam, keyboard player and Lima, drumist. They all are some promising students of this school. Students are sayed to come to the school auditorium to enjoy their performance.

Apostrophe ( ' )

The apostrophe has three uses:

• To form possessives of nouns.
• To show the omission of letters.
• To indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters.

Forming Possessives

The boy's name is Lori. His father's a teacher. His mother managers home. They are from America. America Sandesh is very famous. Once he brought some sandesh from America on his birthday. His brother's name is also very common, Pinto. If the noun after "of" is a building, an object or a piece of furniture, then no apostrophe is needed.

Example:   
To from the possessive of a plural noun that already ends in-s, add an apostrophe:

• The girls' swing set (the swing belonging to the girls)
• The students' projects (the projects belonging to the students) was to make swim suits for boys more comfortable. The boys' new swim sets were real comfortable. The boys' hard work was successful. After presentation, they all went to the Johnson' house (it house belonging to the Johnsons) for lunch.

If the plural noun does not end in-s, add an apostrophe plus-s:

• The woman's conference (the conference belonging to the woman)
• The children's toys (the toys belonging to the children) 
• The men's training camp (the training camp belonging to the men)

Showing Omission:
I'm Ritu. I'm student of class seven. Tomorrow I'll go to Rangamati with my parents. From there we'll go to Canada.  We've plan to visit London too.

• I'm      = I am
• I'll        = I will
• We'll   = We will
• We've = We have

Forming Plurals:

• Apostrophes are used to form plurals of letter it appear in lowercase.

Example:

• Mind your p's and q's.

Dash and the Hyphen ( — ) 

Two (2) other common punctuation marks are dashes and hyphens. These signs are often confused with each other because of their appearance but they are very different.

A dash word is used to separate a statement. There are two (2) common types of dashes: EN dash and EM dash.

• EN Dash: Twice as long as the hyphen, EN dash is a symbol (-) used in writing or in print to indicate a range, connection, or variation, like the Princeton-New York train.
• EM Dash: Longer than N dash, EM dash can be used in place of commas, parentheses or colon to increase readability or to emphasize the conclusion of a sentence. For example, he gave her his answer — No! Whether you put space around the EM dash or not is a choice of style. Just stay consistent.

A hyphen is used to combine two or more words together in compound terms and is not divided by space. For example, back-to-back, part-time, and well-known.

Activity

Read the text below and change punctuation marks as needed:

In London Email have got some new friends- Adnan a student of St Gregory School, John a student of London Govt Boys School, and Alok a student of S Kisholoy School. 

They've good contact with Email. Yesterday I went to Email but I couldn't see him. She wrote on a piece of paper, Detective Email is busy now. He stuck that piece of paper on his door As I left his place laughing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

In writing English, what is punctuation?

Answer: Punctuation is what makes printed words meaningful and organized in a language that we can read and understand.

Which is the most difficult punctuation mark in English language?

Answer: Probably a semicolon, because it conceptually connects two independent streams; A semicolon usually introduces a section that explains, complements, or adds a subtlety to the previous section.

What punctuation mark must be used in a list?

Answer: It depends on the content of the list and how it is being presented.
It’s not uncommon today, though not strictly grammatically correct, to avoid any punctuation on a bulleted list. However, the correct way to make a text list is to separate each item with a comma, inserting "and" before the last entry. If the items on the list have any internal punctuation, they should be separated by semi-colon.

What are some lesser known punctuation marks in English?

Answer: Double dash (I don't know the official name) "--" is often used to give a sidebar in writing (paying attention to the speaker's thoughts).

What is an example of a punctuation mark?

Answer: Here are some examples of punctuation:

• (?) question mark
• (!) exclamation mark (to show surprise)
• (.) full stop to end a sentence
• (,) to end a phrase within a sentence.
• (:) colon
• (;) semicolon
• ( / ) slash
• (-) hyphen
• (-) en dash
• (—) em dash
• ( [] ) brackets
• ( () ) parentheses