Punctuation rules guide
Seven marks cause most of the trouble. Each guide below has a hands-on example you can switch back and forth, the rule in one line, and where the big style guides disagree.
- Oxford commaThe Oxford comma, also called the serial comma, is the comma before the final "and" or "or" in a list of three or more items: red, white, and blue..
- SemicolonsA semicolon is stronger than a comma and weaker than a full stop.
- Colon vs semicolonA colon points forward: what follows explains, lists or delivers what came before.
- Em dash vs en dashEnglish has three horizontal marks of different lengths, and each has its own job.
- Comma rulesMost comma decisions fall under eight rules.
- Apostrophe rulesAn apostrophe does exactly two jobs: it shows possession (Maya's phone) and it marks missing letters in a contraction (don't).
- Hyphen rulesThe hyphen's main job is to glue words that act as a single description before a noun, so the reader doesn't trip..
Quick answers
What are the main punctuation marks in English?
Full stop (period), comma, semicolon, colon, question mark, exclamation mark, apostrophe, quotation marks, hyphen, en dash, em dash, parentheses and brackets. This guide covers the ones people most often get wrong.
Which style guide should I follow?
Use whatever your school, publication or employer specifies: often APA or MLA for essays, Chicago for books, AP for journalism. Where they differ, each guide here says so.