Posts tagged punctuation
I wrote a piece of poetry for one of my short stories (the main character, Eri, writes poems). It's the following: Eri, did you feel the earthquake last night? Are you really sure your ap...
Are quotes only for spoken text? Can I use quotes to emphasize sarcasm, like when somebody physically makes quote symbols with their fingers while reading?
Following my question here I am still unsure if it is a 'hard and fast' rule to italicise thoughts. My preference is to use normal quotation marks, so that if a person is thinking in a dialogue si...
Sometimes I can't decide whether to use a semicolon or a em dash. Usually, I start with semicolons and, once I notice there are too many of them, I start replacing a few with em dashes (as I read s...
I read that bullet points have to be consistent when it comes to content and punctuation. For example, you can't mix full sentence bullet points with fragments. Is this true for hyphen points (if t...
I have a paragraph like below: A hypothetical solution is like this: first, we can use a table to record entries. These entries are imported from a library. . ..... Basically, this paragraph ...
The AP style says that a comma is not needed between two clauses that have the same subject. However, it would become ambiguous if I removed the comma fromt the following: When you walk straigh...
I collaborate with someone who insists on making every sentence (or two) in a business document into a bullet point, by prefacing it with a bullet. This is typically done across a multi-page docu...
I'm writing a poem entirely without commas, periods, colons, dashes, emdashes, etc. However, near the end of the poem I name a city and I want to capitalise it. On one hand, I think it would be j...
Within a user manual, I need to convey the maximum time period allowed as "365 days 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds" - are commas expected between each component? Is the word "and" expected before t...
I find it easier to write many things with parentheses, but I don't know if this is considered good practice. I would expect some might say that parentheses are indicative of excessive digression a...
I understand there's a certain element of stylistic freedom in using quotes, double quotes, or neither. But what are the specific cases when single quotes are generally recommended?
A serial comma is used to separate a list of items: For breakfast, we had ham, eggs, and toast. A serial semi-colon is used when items in the list have commas: For breakfast, we had ham, ...
I'm developing a website: http://alexchen.info/brianfunshine/ My customer wrote the following in the front page: Hi, I’m Brian “Funshine” Alexander. I offer professional Music, Voices, and ...
When writing bulleted items, what are the rules for placing periods? Presumably bulleted items that aren't sentences wouldn't require punctuation: Orange Apple Banana But how about sentence bul...
I have seen ellipses written out both with ("Well . . . gosh . . .") and without spaces ("Well...gosh...") between the dots. I've also looked at several different online writing style sites, and fo...
In writing, particularly writing dialogue or speech-like prose, it is custom to use the punctuation to indicate the tone of the speech. As such, one often uses an exclamation point on a standard s...
Should you only use colons and full stops in dialogues? I thought about using a semi-colon in one of my dialogues, but I had second thought about it, because when we talk, we don't really different...
Why am I getting a strange double quote (“) in Open Office instead of the ordinary one (")? Every time I type the double quote, I get the weird version instead of the ordinary one. How do I get th...
End-of-line hyphenation is the process of breaking words between lines to create more consistency across a text block. (source) A long word is broken across a line-break by means of a hyphen. It he...
Word's grammar check tells me the second sentence below requires a semicolon rather than a comma “If you don’t accept your physical limitations, you will burn out.” Elena was analytical again, ...
I've noticed that I use a lot of exclamation marks when my characters are talking. They appear a lot in action scenes. Is there any rule of thumb when using exclamation marks?
I'm currently writing a story which so far is going well, but I reached a point in the story where I don't know how to proceed. When a character is talking, I write their dialogue just like this: ...
For example: "Move!" I immediately side stepped him. OR "Move!" I immediately side stepped him. I know a new line of paragraph is needed for each speaker, but does the same rule apply in this...
I completed my novel and an editor friend graciously offered to assist me with formatting. As a former scientist, I am more familiar with technical or academic writing, so formatting fiction can be...
Exclamations, I feel, are a good way to describe tone without actually writing the tone. But most of the time I end up (as per reviewers) with too many of exclamations. Many also say that too man...
You know how sometimes we say something sarcastically, and do the double-finger twitch that's supposed to symbolize quotation marks? How do you write that in non-dialogue text (narration)? Not desc...
Which of these is correct? I showed him the woman. “Blood loss is a problem. She needs the wound cauterized.” His eyes widened, “I can’t do that! Her face—” “—is half scraped off. ...
If a step-father is texting his step daughter and he writes: Maybe your "dad" can step up and take the dog What's meant by putting quotation marks around the word "dad"?
In English, I can never remember where to put the comma when using the conjunction word, but. For example: I'd like to stay home and read a book, but I need to pick up some cat food. Jenny asked...
I'm struggling with when to omit the comma before dialogue (as well as when to use capitals) in fiction writing. My understanding is that you would omit the comma before/after something like "he sa...
I have some dialogue between two people (a clerk and a person called John Doe). I want the clerk to say to John: "You're John Doe. Still." So I've punctuated it like this: "You're John Doe. ...
I'd like to properly punctuate one of my characters being stopped in speech, followed by a sentence that explains that the character didn't have time to finish. It's going to be something like thi...
I'm writing (or at least trying to write) a novel, and using standard manuscript format: 12-point Courier, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, etc. I'm using Google Docs, which automatically converts s...
Normally when listing a group of people you would simply separate each with a comma. Please send the memo to Jason, Sarah, and Courtney. However if you want to include the title of each pers...
I always see the em dash (—) in fiction writing. Here are some example from Haruki Murakami's After Dark: Komugi comes in and takes something from one of the cartons piled against the wall—a...
Occasionally I write sentences containing subparts with extra information. I never know how to block off this information from the rest of the sentence. Three ways I have seen are dashes, commas, a...
I have a question regarding comma splices. I'm trying to learn more about comma splices and how to remove them from some work I am doing. I understand the basics regarding them but I have a questio...
I'm writing a documentation for an eGovernment project, so the document I'm writing is a scientific document. It contains some big ideas, each having some subideas, with each subidea having a numbe...
I'm proofreading a novel - the brief has instructed that I do not make any stylistic changes, and correct only the obvious errors that impede sense/clarity. There are several places where I feel a...
For example, in the lines: Say what good really is a life, When so thoroughly deprived of joy Is my restless mind, Hurting constantly, in a dreadful strife? When it needs so many lies, ...
https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Edge_of_Dawn_(Seasons_of_Warfare) The following is the short version of "The Edge of Dawn". Reach for my hand, I'll soar away Into the dawn ...
When a piece of writing has a quoted sentence followed by a dialogue tag, the sentence is usually ended with a comma (inside the quotation marks) and the dialogue tag is in sentence case, like this...
Should a comma be used after a dialogue tag and before the word ”as”. For example: ”I don’t like this at all, ” he said, as the door closed behind them. Or ”I don’t like this at all, ” he s...
I am going to quote from a novel that in my opinion shows many stylistic overlaps of novels and comic books: The Rowan by Anne McCaffrey. I am holding that novel in my hand now. The use of a lot...
When writing an error prompt, should we end the sentence with a exclamation mark or a dot? I am writing an application for iPhone and I have some error prompt in my application like "Your password...
A caesura is a slight pause that's important in poetry, because for example alexandrines require a caesura in the middle. But the question is where can we put them. I know that we tend to put the...
What punctuation is missing from English that might solve your writing issues? People may be able to come up with established ones that meet your criteria, such as the /s to indicate "that last...
In the writing practises guides, it is usually mentioned that use of ellipsis is a bad practice. But I have come across certain usages in professional writing. To give an example; In the novel ...
I struggle on what to highlight, and when to use quote marks. I also exaggerate specific words. Example: Please Sign-out and Click "Delete my sign-in info" before logging back in. Please pr...
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