Identify Common Punctuation Marks and Their Rules for Correct Usage

In this short skit, comedian Victor Borge illustrates just how prevalent punctuation is (or should be) in language.

Click here to download a transcript for this video

As you’ve just heard, punctuation is everywhere. While it can be a struggle at first to learn the rules that come along with each mark, punctuation is here to help you: these marks were invented to guide readers through passages—to let them know how and where words relate to each other. When you learn the rules of punctuation, you equip yourself with an extensive toolset so you can better craft language to communicate the exact message you want.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this module, different style guides have slightly different rules for grammar. This is especially true when it comes to punctuation. This outcome will cover the MLA rules for punctuation, but we’ll also make note of rules from other styles when they’re significantly different.

What You Will Learn to Do

• identify the role of end punctuation: periods, question marks, exclamation points
• identify the role of commas
• identify the role of semicolons
• identify the role of colons
• identify the role of hyphens and dashes
• identify the role of apostrophes
• identify the role of quotation marks
• identify the role of brackets
• identify the role of ellipses
• identify the role of parentheses

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