{"id":173,"date":"2016-08-08T20:13:32","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T20:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/styleguide\/?post_type=chapter&p=173"},"modified":"2023-07-26T15:06:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T15:06:08","slug":"end-punctuation","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-guidetowriting\/chapter\/end-punctuation\/","title":{"raw":"Ending Punctuation","rendered":"Ending Punctuation"},"content":{"raw":"The three most common punctuation marks that come at the end of a sentence are the period, the question mark, and the exclamation point. In MLA, a sentence is followed by a single space, no matter what the concluding punctuation is.\r\n

Periods<\/h2>\r\n\"ThePeriods indicate a neutral sentence, and as such are\u00a0by far the most common ending punctuation mark. They've been at the end of every sentence on this page so far.\r\n

Question Marks<\/h2>\r\n\"AnA question mark comes at the end of a question (so now you know).\r\n\r\nDirect questions obviously use question marks, but so do rhetorical questions, which writers employ to make a point, and which do not expect an answer. Often the answer is implied or obvious, e.g. \"Who would have thought that invading Russia during the bitter winter of 1812 would turn out to be a disaster for Napoleon's lightly clad troops?\" At other times, rhetorical questions can be used for heightened rhetorical effect, as when Percy Bysshe Shelley ends his\u00a0Ode to the West Wind<\/em> with, \"O Wind, \/ If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?\"\r\n
You should be careful, however, about posing rhetorical questions in formal writing because if you don't use them effectively, it can seem as if you are throwing a question out to the readers that you yourself aren't capable of answering. In particular, avoid ending the introduction to an essay with a question and then providing your answer ten pages later in your conclusion. It might seem like a smart rhetorical move, but readers actually experience it as frustrating and as an abdication of the writer's responsibility to provide their argument in their introduction.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nPolite requests framed as questions also have a question mark, even though they aren't really seeking an answer, e.g.,\u00a0\"Would you hold this beaker?\"\r\n

Indirect Questions<\/h3>\r\nIndirect questions\u00a0can be used in many of the same ways as direct\u00a0ones, but they often emphasize knowledge or lack of knowledge:\r\n