Punctuation Marks

26 Apr 2018

There are a number of punctuation marks used in English.

Full stops

Full stops, also known as periods, are used to end a sentence.

This is a short sentence.

Exclamation marks are used to express emotion. They are also used after interjections.

It was amazing!

Wow! That sounds fantastic.

Question marks are used at the end of sentences, to indicate a question being asked.

Why did you go to France?

Commas are used to separate things.

Apples, bananas and pears.

To learn more about commas, please read the How To Use Commas Page.

Semicolons are used to link to clauses.

I had beer; my girlfriend had wine.

Colons are used to give more information.

She's only interested in one thing: money.

Apostrophes are used to indicate possession or to shorten sentences.

Carl's car is very fast.

It's that way.

Quotation marks surround quotations.

He said, "she was very sweet".

Hyphens, also known as a dash, are used to join two words which make up a single description.

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