Punctuation is a set of specific marks or symbols that we used to express the meaning of our sentences clearly and to make the flow of the text smooth. It shows us where we need to pause, it separates ...

A few years ago while copy editing an article, I was shocked to see something like this: “I lecture my sales staff about what I call ‘me syndrome,’” Jones said. What shocked me was the punctuation.

With dialogue, specific punctuation is needed. Most often, commas and periods go within the quotation marks, but there are some forms of punctuation and examples that go outside of the quotation marks ...

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Word, word, word, word, word, punctuation mark. This is how we read. Sometimes there are more words, ...

Some expressions are hard to punctuate. Take the phrase “How about that”; too sprightly for a plain ordinary . , it is sometimes too ironic to justify an ebullient ! . More often than not, isn’t it ...

The question mark, said Gertrude Stein, is “positively revolting”. She thought the exclamation mark was “ugly” and “unnecessary” too. Cormac McCarthy shuns the semi-colon and quotation marks. At times ...

I’ve gotten a lot of emails recently about where to put periods and commas relative to quotation marks. The notes were prompted by a recent column in which I mentioned that, in American English, a ...