Boredom Be Gone: Lesson 8- Punctuation

Punctuation rules:

Use a period:

1. at the end of a declarative sentence (a sentence that makes a statement) “The rain come out of nowhere.”

2. after an abbreviation (etc.)

3, after initials (E. N. Griffin)

Use question mark at the end of an interrogative sentence. (Who asked that question?)

Use a comma:

1. to separate words or groups of words in a series ( You will need a pen, paper, and your brain,)

2. to separate the name of a street from the name of a town (12 Maingate Drive, Cleveland)

3. between the name of a state and the name of a country ( PA, USA)

4. to separate the month from the year (April, 2020)

5. after the greeting of a friendly letter (Dear Mark,)

6. after the closing phrase of a letter ( Love, Cindy)

7. to set off introductory words (Next, make sure you do all your homework.)

8. to set off expressions that interrupt the sentence (you, by the way, had the highest grade.)

9. to set off a direct quotation ( He said, “ I always punctuate my sentences correctly.”

10. to set off a noun of direct address (Come along, Nancy.)

11. In a compound sentence (in other words, if each side of the sentence can stand by itself.)

Use an apostrophe:
1. to form the possessive of a singular noun not ending in “s” (man’s)

2. to form the plural possessive of a noun not ending in ”s” (men’s)

3. to form the possessive of a plural noun ending in ”s” (friends’)

4. to show where letters have been left out in a contraction (don’t)

Use quotation marks:

1. to enclose a direct quotation (“He’s a real jerk,“ she said.)

2. Around the titles of short stories, articles, songs, poems, and themes (Edgar Allen Poe wrote “The Telltale Heart”)

Underline titles of books, magazines, newspapers, and plays.

Use a colon:

1. to show what time it is (2:00)

2. In an “announced” list (You need to bring the following: books, pens and paper.) note: in a list, it is not necessary to put a comma before “and”- it’s your choice; if you used to use a comma, it’s called an “oxford comma”.)

In a compound sentence, you can use a semicolon instead of a comma and a conjunction ( What she did was ridiculous; I’ll never speak to her again.)

Use a hyphen when spelling out numbers. (fifty-six)

Insert all necessary punctuation. Capitalize all proper nouns.

With a thunderous roar the silver ship raced to the earth and it glided smoothly to a stop before the airplane terminal. It had reached it’s destination international airport new york New York.

Just a few miles outside the center of the city New York international airport sometimes called idlewild was opened in june1948. Then the field was used mainly by two domestic airlines pan American and eastern. Today however airlines from all the major countries of the world arrive at this busy airport. They come from london England Paris France rome Italy and even Haifa Israel it has become a very important airport which is currently known as Kennedy airport.

This should take you about two minutes!

Answers will appear at the end of lesson nine.