English Punctuation Guide English Writing Lesson
Hi, I’m Kasia.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn about English
punctuation.
You’ll see the most common punctuation marks
in English, what they’re called, and how
to use them.
This lesson has many sections.
If you want, you can just watch the sections
you need.
Using punctuation correctly is critical for
your English writing.
Punctuation problems can make a bad impression
or lead to misunderstandings.
If you need to improve your English writing,
check out our website: Oxford Online English
dot com.
There are many free lessons to help you with
your writing, or you can take writing lessons
with one of our professional teachers.
But first, let’s look at one of the most
basic English punctuation marks.
A full stop is also called a period in American
English.
Use a full stop at the end of a full sentence.
Don’t put a space before the full stop;
put one after.
A full sentence could be short and simple,
like this: ‘I got there early.’
A full sentence could also be longer and more
complex, like this: ‘Although my train arrived
late, and I was sure I wouldn’t make it
on time, I actually got there slightly early.’
Be careful; the idea of a ‘full sentence’
is not flexible, and it depends on the grammatical
structure of the sentence.
For example, can you see the mistake in this
sentence?
The first part, which ends with the word ‘there’,
is a full sentence.
You can’t choose to put a comma and continue;
you need a full stop, or a semicolon, or you
need to add a conjunction.
Learning about sentence structure, and how
to make clauses into longer sentences, is
important if you want to use English punctuation
correctly.
Full stops are also used in some abbreviations—when
you make words shorter.
There are three kinds of abbreviation.
One: abbreviations which never have full
stops, like ‘BBC’, ‘CIA’ or ‘UN’.
Two: abbreviations which always use full
stops, like ‘e.g.’, ‘i.e.’ or ‘etc.’
Three… wait, can you guess?
Some abbreviations are sometimes written with
full stops, and sometimes without.
For example, mister, doctor, or AM and PM
for talking about the time.
Titles, like ‘mister’, ‘Mrs’ or ‘doctor’,
are generally written without a full stop
in British English, and with one in American
English.
In British English, it’s more common to
write AM and PM in lower-case letters with
full stops.
In American English, it’s more common to
use capital letters and no full stops.
However, both forms are commonly used and
you can choose which you prefer.
Commas have three main jobs.
Two of them are very simple.
First, use a comma to separate items in a
list, like this: ‘Their house has two bedrooms,
a large living room, two bathrooms and a terrace.’
After each item in your list, put a comma.
Use the word ‘and’ between the last two
items on your list: ‘To make this, you’ll
need eggs, flour and sugar.’
You can choose to put a comma before ‘and’
or not.
Both styles are possible!
You also need a comma with certain conjunctions,
particularly ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’
and ‘or’.
For example: ‘You can ask her, but I don’t
think she’ll agree.’
‘I won’t be there till ten, so don’t
wait for me.’
The last way to use commas is also the most
complicated.
Use a comma—or often two commas, in a pair—to
add non-essential information to your sentence.
What does ‘non-essential’ mean?
It means that you could remove the information,
and the sentence would still make sense and
have the same basic meaning.
This is common when you use an adverb or linking
phrase at the start of a sentence.
For example: ‘Apparently, he’s been suffering
from depression for several years.’
It’s also common when you add extra information
in the middle of a sentence, like this: ‘Yakutsk,
which is in northern Siberia, has the coldest
winters of any city in the world.’
Colons have one main job: they introduce examples,
explanations or details.
Look at one example: ‘Rapid urbanisation
has led to multiple problems: congestion,
air pollution and a shortage of affordable
housing for families.’
Here, the sentence before the colon mentions
a general idea—multiple problems—and the
sentence after the colon explains what these
problems are.
This is very common with colons; you mention
something general before the colon, then you
explain it in more detail after the colon.
Let’s see two more examples of this: ‘I
can promise you one thing: you won’t regret
your decision.’
‘He left all of his money to his best friend
in the whole world: his cat.’
Semicolons are most similar to a full stop.
They’re used at the end of a full sentence.
So, what’s the difference?
Using a semicolon shows that your ideas before
and after the semicolon are connected.
For example: ‘He’s so stubborn; it’s
impossible to convince him to change his ideas
even a little.’
Here, you have two sentences, but they’re
both talking about the same idea: him and
his stubborn character.
The semicolon emphasises that the ideas are
connected.
You never need to use a semicolon, but they
can be very useful.
Using a semicolon is a very easy way to make
connections between your ideas, which can
help you to write clearly and efficiently.
When you use a semicolon, you don’t need
to use any conjunctions or linking phrases.
For example: ‘Companies won’t consider
applications which look rushed; it’s better
to apply to fewer companies, but put more
time into each application.’
However, there are some linking words which
can be used with a semicolon, like ‘however’:
‘I don’t regret it; however, I would do
things differently if I had another chance.’
Like commas, apostrophes have more than one
job, which can make them more difficult to
use correctly.
Firstly, use an apostrophe in contractions
to replace a missing letter.
For example: ‘She doesn’t eat cheese.’
‘You’re right about that.’
You also use an apostrophe to show that something
belongs to a person: ‘Why have you got Dean’s
jacket?’
You can even connect multiple nouns together
like this: ‘Her mother’s cousin’s son
won a Nobel Prize.’
What if the word you want to use already ends
with ‘s’?
Here’s the rule: if the ‘s’ after the
apostrophe is pronounced, then you should
write it, too: ‘We met at Boris’s barbecue.’
If you don’t pronounce an extra ‘s’,
then don’t write one; just add an apostrophe
to the end of the word, like this: ‘We could
stay at my parents’ house for a couple of
days.’
Finally, you don’t generally use an apostrophe
to write plurals.
Even if you’re making a proper name plural,
like: ‘There were four Ambers in my group’,
you don’t use an apostrophe for the plural.
However, there’s one exception to this.
Do you know it?
If you need to make a letter plural, then
you add an apostrophe, like this: ‘How many
m’s are there in ‘accommodation’?’
Hyphens are used to make compound words, especially
compound adjectives.
Compound words are words made of two or more
other words.
For example: ‘It’s a six-hour flight to
Mumbai.’
The adjective ‘six-hour’ is made from
the two words ‘six’ and ‘hour’, and
you use a hyphen to connect the two parts.
Here’s another example: ‘It was surprisingly
tasty for a five-dollar meal.’
However, hyphen use in compound words is inconsistent
and changing.
Generally, the trend is to use fewer hyphens,
but there are some cases where you need to
use a hyphen every time.
Compound words made with numbers almost always
have hyphens.
For example: ‘They have a three-year-old
daughter.’
The adjective ‘three-year-old’ is made
with a number, and it’s always written with
hyphens.
You also need to use hyphens when you use
certain prefixes, like ‘ex-’ or ‘self-’.
Words with the prefix ‘non-’ are also
often hyphenated.
For example: ‘His ex-wife was promoted and
is now his direct manager.’
‘Non-smokers generally need to pay much
less for health insurance.’
‘Self-driving cars may become popular one
day, but for now the technology is too underdeveloped.’
If you add a prefix to a proper noun or a
number, you also need a hyphen, as in: ‘anti-European’
‘post-1950 politics’
Finally, you also need to use a hyphen in
compound numbers and fractions.
For example:
‘three-quarters of the population’
‘twenty-three’
‘twenty-three’
If you’re not sure whether to use a hyphen in a number or not, just write the number.
Dashes might look like hyphens, but they aren’t
the same.
First, there are two kinds of dashes, called
en dashes and em dashes.
En dashes have a space on either side of the
dash – like this.
Em dashes join onto the words before and after—like
this.
You don’t need to worry about this; both
en dashes and em dashes do the same job.
Choose one and stick with it.
So, what do you use dashes for?
Dashes are used to add extra information to
a sentence.
Remember that commas can also do this.
‘Extra’ information means that you could
remove the information from the sentence and
everything would still make sense.
Dashes are preferable when the extra information
doesn’t fit well with the grammar or flow
of the sentence.
For example: ‘He had escaped—or so he
thought.’
Whether something fits the ‘flow’ of your
sentence or not is subjective.
That means you can often choose whether to
use dashes or commas to add some extra information
to your sentence.
For example: ‘The number of stars in the
Milky Way—including many which are undetectable—is
estimated to be over 400 billion.’
Here, you could replace the dashes with commas.
Both versions are correct.
However, we recommend choosing dashes when
you can.
That’s because dashes only do one job, whereas
commas can do multiple jobs.
Using dashes makes things clearer, because
your reader doesn’t have to think about
why the punctuation is there.
There are two kinds of speech marks: single
and double.
Often, they do the same thing, and it doesn’t
matter which you use.
However, we recommend that you use double
speech marks when you’re quoting what someone
said.
For example: He stood up and said “I wouldn’t
do it if you paid me a million dollars.”
“Being lucky is more important than being
talented,” were the first words of her speech.
Before the speech marks, you can put a comma,
a colon, or nothing.
Using a comma is more common, but we recommend
you use nothing, because it’s more efficient.
Whatever you choose, try to be consistent!
There are also different opinions about whether
final punctuation—like a full stop at the
end of a quote—should go inside or outside
the speech marks.
Again, it doesn’t really matter; the most
important thing is to be consistent.
Speech marks can be used in other ways, too.
Look at two examples: Paying 100 euros for
‘luxury economy’ was not a good idea!
Many cities in the ‘special economic development
zone’ are practically ghost towns.
Speech marks can be used to express irony,
sarcasm or scepticism.
For example, putting ‘luxury economy’
in speech marks shows that there was nothing
luxurious about the plane journey.
In the second example, you put ‘special
economic development zone’ in speech marks
to express irony; if many cities are ghost
towns, then there’s clearly not much economic
development there.
You also use speech marks when you refer to
words as words.
What does that mean?
Look at two examples: ‘Millennium’ is
a difficult word to spell!
Why did you use ‘plethora’ here?’
Here, the words ‘millennium’ and ‘plethora’
are used indirectly, to refer to the words
themselves, rather than the ideas.
Generally, we recommend using double speech
marks to quote what someone said, and single
speech marks for everything else.
However, you may see different styles.
Like commas and dashes, parentheses can be
used to add some extra, non-essential information
to your sentence.
Often, the information in parentheses is a
date, a name or a statistic.
For example: ‘Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930)
was one of the most famous poets of the revolution
era.’
‘The percentage of under-30s doing regular
exercise was lower (45%) than that of people
over 45 (52%).’
Using parentheses to add statistics and figures
is an efficient method to add numbers and
other supporting data to your writing.
You can also use parentheses to show that
your reader can choose how to understand what
you’re saying.
For example: ‘Write your suggestion(s) here.’
By adding ‘s’ in parentheses, you mean
that you can write one suggestion, or more
than one, as you prefer.
Try to avoid using parentheses to add longer
ideas to your sentence.
For example: ‘Consumption of processed meat
(which has been linked to many diseases, including
colon cancer) is rising in many parts of the
world.’
This is not a good example of using parentheses.
It would be better to add the additional information
using commas or dashes instead.
In this case, commas would be best.
Question marks are simple to use; add them
at the end of a direct question, like this:
‘What time is it?’
‘How old are you?’
Direct questions can be longer, with more
complex structure: ‘Could you tell me how
to get to the train station?’
However, if you’re reporting what someone
else said, then it’s not a question, and
you shouldn’t use a question mark: ‘She
asked me how to get to the train station.’
Exclamation marks add some emphasis or emotion
to a sentence.
For example: ‘It’s so cold in here!’
‘There’s a snake!’
Unless you’re writing something very informal,
it’s generally good style to use exclamation
marks minimally.
Overusing them will make them meaningless.
Like most final punctuation, you shouldn’t
put a space before a question mark or an exclamation
mark, but you do need a space afterwards.
OK, we have a question for you: which English
punctuation do you find the most confusing?
Please let us know in the comments!
Thanks for watching!
See you next time!