Punctuation

Apostrophes

• When abbreviating years of college classes, take care to punctuate with an apostrophe (which usually points downward), not an opening single quotation mark (which usually points upward). In some typefaces, the difference is especially noticeable.
  
  

  Wrong: Class of '98
  Right: Class of '98

• Bachelor's, master's, and doctor's degrees should always be written with an 's. Never write masters' degrees.

• Add 's to form the possessive of singular nouns, including proper names ending in s.
  
  

  Tom Jones's record
  Exceptions: Jesus', Moses', James', Euripides', Xerxes', and Ramses'

• Do not use apostrophes with plurals of years, numbers, acronyms, or capital letters of the alphabet (unless they could be read as a word if the s were added).
  
  

  the late 1960s         Bs and Cs (but A's, I's, and U's)          dos and don'ts

• Do use apostrophes to form the plurals of abbreviations with periods and lowercased letters of the alphabet.
  
  

  Ph.D.'s         p's and q's

Colons

• A colon may be used after an independent clause to introduce a list.
  
  

  We borrowed three items: a pen, a pencil, and an eraser.
  Students must complete the following courses: ENG 101, ENG 102, and SOC 123.

• A colon should not be used to separate a verb or preposition from the object, unless an independent clause precedes the colon or the object is displayed in a vertical list.
  
  

  Wrong:	We are going to: England, France, and Germany.
  Right:	We are going to England, France, and Germany. We are going to: England France Germany Return forms to Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy., Dayton, Ohio 45435-0001. Return this form to: Kim Goldenberg, President Wright State University 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy. Dayton, Ohio 45435-0001

• Follow a statement that introduces a direct quotation of one or more paragraphs with a colon. Also use a colon after as follows.

Commas

• Use a comma before the words and and or in a series.
  
  

  May Daze will feature the following activities: a band, kissing booth, pizza booth, and beer booth.

• Place a comma after numerals signifying thousands
  
  

  1,150 students

  Commas are often omitted when reference is made to high temperatures
  
  

  4600°F.

• Use a comma to set off qualifying information.
  
  

  Kim Goldenberg, the president of Wright State University, will speak tonight.

• Countries or states that follow cities should be set off by commas.
  
  

  Dayton, Ohio, is the birthplace of aviation.
  We went to Paris, France, and London, England.

• Commas should precede and follow the year when the month, day, and year are used internally in sentences.
  
  

  The conferences were held on December 13, 1996, and January 11, 1997.

  Do not place a comma between the month and year when the day is not mentioned.
  
  

  The conferences were held in December 1996 and January 1997.

• Commas do not need to precede and follow Jr. and Sr. in proper names unless it is the strong preference of the people named (e.g., in a list of donors' names). Roman numerals with names are never set off by commas.
  
  

  The John W. Berry Sr. Room is located in the Ervin J. Nutter Center.
  Victor P. Robinson III is now in charge of the company.

• Academic degrees are set off by commas in a person's name:
  
  

  Jean Robinson, Ph.D., will chair the committee today.

• Introductory words such as namely, i.e., e.g., and viz., should be preceded by a comma or semicolon and followed by a comma.

Hyphenation

When in doubt, don't hyphenate.

• Do not hyphenate vice president and vice chair.

• Do not hyphenate words beginning with non, except those containing a proper noun
  
  

  non-German; nontechnical

• Do not place a hyphen between the prefixes pre, post, co, semi, anti, etc., and nouns or adjectives, except proper nouns, but avoid duplicated vowels or triple consonants.
  
  

  predoctoral
  postsecondary
  cocurricular
  
  

  Exceptions:

  co-editor co-worker co-op (but cooperative) Pre-College Program

• Do not place a hyphen between the prefix sub and the word to which it is attached.
  
  

  subtotal

• Use a hyphen to avoid ambiguity.
  
  

  small-business profits, rather than small business profits

• Hyphenate part time and full time when used as adjectives.
  
  

  She is a full-time student.
  He works full time at the university.

• Do not use a hyphen between an adverb ending in -ly and an adjective.
  
  

  fully developed program

• Hyphenate X-ray as a verb and adjective but not as a noun.

• Use the nonhyphenated spelling of a word if either spelling is acceptable.

Periods

• Call letters of radio stations and alphabetical abbreviations of groups, organizations, or institutions such as WBAA, ROTC, USDA, MIT, or UCLA, should be capitalized and written without periods or spaces, but letter symbols of degrees B.S., M.S., Ph.D., and of the U.S. should be capitalized and written with periods.

Quotation Marks

• Place in quotation marks the titles of book series, episode titles of radio and television series, songs, lectures, and parts (chapters, titles of papers, etc.) of volumes, but italicize the titles of books, essays, long musical compositions, motion pictures, television series and nonserial programs, pamphlets, periodicals, etc.
  
  

  The final episode of M*A*S*H was entitled "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen"
  The Clan of the Cave Bear from the "Earth's Children" series of novels
  The New Yorker
  "Sunrise, Sunset" from A Fiddler on the Roof
  Chapter One, "I Am Born," from Charles Dickens's David Copperfield.

• Use single quotation marks for quotations printed within other quotations.
  
  

  "Lay on, Macduff,
  And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!' "

• Use single quotation marks in headlines.

• If several paragraphs are to be quoted, use quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph but only at the end of the last paragraph.

• Set quotation marks outside periods and commas and inside colons and semicolons. They should be set inside of exclamation points and question marks that are not part of the quotation.
  
  

  Have you heard of the old proverb, "Do not climb the hill until you reach it"?
  The child said, "I can't wait until Christmas!"

• Do not use quotation marks to draw attention to a word or to justify an attempt at humor.
  
  

  Wrong: People jump out of airplanes without parachutes "just for fun."

• Words used in an ironic sense may be enclosed in quotation marks.
  
  

  The "debate" resulted in three cracked heads and two broken noses.

• No quotation marks are necessary in printing interviews when the name of the speaker is given first, or in reports of testimony when the words question and answer or Q and A are used, such as:
  
  

  Q: Who will benefit from the plan?
  A: Full-time staff, students…
  Smith: How do you plan your curriculum?
  Wesson: A committee does that.