When people give tips on content creation, they invariably include something like, “edit for grammar” or “pay attention to the rules of grammar.”
That’s excellent advice, but I often think there’s something going on that a lot of marketers who write blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, or whitepapers don’t talk about.
What if you’re not well-versed in the rules of grammar?
What if you want to make certain that you correctly use a semicolon or avoid a comma splice in that blog post you’re publishing, but you’re not sure how to?
The devil’s in the details, right? Punctuation marks are little details that can get pretty confusing with all of their rules.
But fear not! By the end of this post, there won’t be a punctuation mark that you can’t conquer. If you think grammar is kind of cool and interesting, there are many technical terms in here for you to totally geek out on. If you think grammar is basically a necessary evil for writers, there’s everyday language so you can understand things in an easy, uncomplicated way.
Now, something like “A Guide to Punctuation Marks” could be a book (and probably is), so I’m not going to cover every single punctuation mark (I think we’re all pretty confident in our abilities to use the question mark). Instead, I’ll focus on the punctuation marks that can be befuddling with all their nuances.
Colons
What it is (in grammarian language): A colon follows a complete sentence and introduces a word, phrase, clause, or list. Whatever follows the colon directly relates to the complete sentence that precedes it.
What it is (in the language of everyday people): A colon is used after a complete sentence. A colon introduces a word, phrase, clause, or list that’s closely related to that complete sentence. I’d use a colon in a sentence like the following:
When I asked my friend what she wanted for dinner, she told me she had a very specific craving: tacos.
“When I asked my friend what she wanted for dinner, she told me she had a very specific craving:” is a complete sentence, so I can put a colon after that. What follows the colon (“tacos”) expands upon and adds detail to that complete sentence. It gives that sentence a little something extra.
The colon also introduces quotations:
When I told my mom I planned to make tacos, she gave me some really helpful advice: “I think you should just go to Chipotle.”
(Again, a complete sentence precedes the colon.)
And finally, a colon follows a sentence that includes the words “the following.”
My options for taco toppings included the following: lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, cheese, and guacamole.
Should you capitalize the first word after a colon? If the colon doesn’t introduce a complete sentence, don’t capitalize the first word. If the colon does introduce a complete sentence, capitalizing the first word is a stylistic choice.
Semicolons
What it is (in grammarian language): The semicolon is used to connect two closely related independent clauses and to separate items in a list.
What it is (in the language of everyday people): Let’s first identify what an independent clause is. An independent clause has a subject and a verb and can stand alone as a sentence.
I make the best taco dip.
This clause has a subject (“I”) and a verb (“make”), and it’s a complete sentence. When you have two independent clauses and those clauses are closely related, you can join them with a semicolon.
I make the best taco dip; my friends always ask me to bring it to parties.
I have two complete sentences here, and both of these sentences are on a similar topic. Here’s another example:
I love to cook Mexican food; I always use my cousin’s recipes with a little of my own improvisation.
There’s a formula here: independent clause + semicolon + independent clause.
You can also join two independent clauses with a semicolon and an independent work marker. Independent marker words include words like “however,” “moreover,” “nevertheless,” “therefore,” and “furthermore.”
I think my tacos taste good; however, my friend said that she hated them.
I cooked the meal; therefore, I think my friend should clean it up.
These examples also have a formula: independent clause + semicolon + independent word marker + comma + independent clause.
In addition to joining independent clauses, semicolons separate items in a list.
I’ve eaten delicious Mexican food in Dallas, Texas; San Diego, California; and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
It’s better to use semicolons to separate these items because these items already have commas.
Em dashes
What it is (in grammarian language): An em dash indicates a break in thought/sentence structure or sets off parenthetical elements of a sentence.
What it is (in the language of everyday people): Em dashes can be used solo, or they can be used in pairs. When you see one em dash in a sentence, think of that em dash kind of like a drumroll. The em dash heralds something important, and the word, phrase, or clause that follows the dash is noteworthy. The em dash tells readers to pay attention because something significant is coming up. And an em dash is not the same thing as a hyphen (we’ll get to the hyphen later).
Em dash: —
Hyphen: -
An em dash would make sense in a sentence like this:
Last night I ate ten tacos — in seven minutes.
The fact that last night I ate ten tacos may be unhealthy noteworthy, but the em dash in this sentence lets people know that the truly important part is coming up, and that part is the fact that I ate ten tacos in seven minutes. The short time in which I inhaled my food is what I want to draw attention to. The em dash lets me do that. The sentence reads like, “Last night I ate ten tacos *wait for it* *wait for it* in seven minutes!”
Em dashes can also be used in pairs to set off nonessential elements of a sentence or introduce extra info. Because the words between the em dashes simply add info, if you took those words out of the sentence, the sentence would still make sense.
The tacos — I made them myself using a secret recipe — looked like something from ‘Top Chef.’
If I took out “I made them myself using a secret recipe,” this sentence would make sense.
When used in pairs, em dashes can also communicate an emphatic aside, like so:
Those tacos — I don’t care if you don’t agree with me — were a culinary masterpiece.
Things get confusing when there are multiple pairs of em dashes in one sentence, so stick to one pair per sentence.
Placing spaces around em dashes is a stylistic choice.
Commas
What it is (in grammarian language): Commas separate independent clauses that are connected by coordinating conjunctions and set off nonessential elements of sentences.
What it is (in the language of everyday people): For being such a little punctuation mark, the comma has a crazy amount of jobs it performs. Rules about commas abound, so I’m going to focus only on those rules that seem to give people the most trouble. The biggest misconception about commas is that you put a comma everywhere you want to indicate a pause. (False!) Here are some cases when you do need commas.
Remember independent clauses? You can join two closely related ones with a semicolon. You can also connect independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction and a comma. “Coordinating conjunction” sounds daunting, but it’s ultra-simple: the words “and,” “but,” “or,” “nor,” “for,” “so,” and “yet” are coordinating conjunctions. If you want to connect two independent clauses, all you have to do is pick one of those seven words, throw a comma before it, and join your two clauses.
I keep thinking about food, so I’m making myself hungry.
I love all hot sauces, but I’m partial to Sriracha.
Those coordinating conjunctions are short words, but they’re really important. If you use a comma to join two independent clauses and forget to add one of those seven words, you end up with an error that’s called a comma splice.
That dinner was delicious, my sister cooked it.
Now, there’s also something called a dependent clause. Independent clauses can stand on their own as full sentences, but dependent clauses can’t. A dependent clause contains both a subject and a verb, but it just doesn’t make sense as a full sentence.
When I go to the grocery store
Although I drank my weight in Sriracha
Because my farmers market sells hot sauce
Because dependent clauses don’t make sense on their own, we always join them with an independent clause. When you have a dependent clause followed by an independent clause, you add a comma right after the dependent clause.
Because my farmers market sells hot sauce, I stock up on the stuff whenever I go.
Think of those commas as support that you give to dependent clauses, which can never stand on their own as full sentences.
Finally, commas also set off nonessential elements of a sentence. A nonessential element is just a word, phrase, or clause that adds extra information to a sentence. If you can take a word, phrase, or clause out of a sentence and that sentence still makes sense, then that word, phrase, or clause is nonessential.
My coworker, Mike, likes spicy food.
If I set off “Mike” with commas, this sentence tells people that I have only one coworker. His name is just extra info that I provide people.
My coworker Mike likes spicy food.
This means that I have more than one coworker, and Mike is the coworker who likes spicy food. “Mike” is essential to the sentence because I have many coworkers and I need to tell people which one of those coworkers likes spicy food.
(And I’m going to carefully sidestep the debate on the Oxford comma.)
Hyphens
What it is (in grammarian language): Hyphens are used in compound modifiers that come before nouns.
What it is (in the language of everyday people): OK, hyphens can get really confusing. The AP Style Manual and the Chicago Manual have specific rules just for hyphens. And sometimes your best bet is to look up the word you’re unsure of. But there are some rules you can usually (I use usually in a loose sense) stick to. One of those is to use a hyphen when you have a compound modifier before a noun. A compound modifier means that two or more words unite and form a single adjective, like so:
My cousin brought over some vine-ripened tomatoes.
(Compound modifier = “vine-ripened”)
My mom just made her Sriracha-flavored popcorn.
(Compound modifier = “Sriracha-flavored”)
My much-loved recipe received copious amounts of praise.
(Compound modifier = “much-loved”)
Now, you use hyphens only when modifiers come before nouns. If modifiers come after nouns, don’t use a hyphen.
These tomatoes are vine ripened.
My mom’s popcorn is Sriracha flavored.
My recipe is much loved.
One trick to determine whether or not you need a hyphen is to put the word “and” in between the adjectives that come before a noun and see if things still make sense.
Is my mom’s popcorn Sriracha and flavored? No, it’s Sriracha-flavored popcorn. Are the tomatoes vine and ripened? No, they’re vine-ripened tomatoes. Let’s say I had a sentence like this:
I was hungry when I wrote this blog post, so I kept thinking about delicious, spicy food.
“Delicious” and “spicy” both modify food. If I put an “and” between those two adjectives, things would still make sense (the food is delicious, and the food is spicy). I can even rearrange those adjectives and things would make sense (spicy, delicious food). I don’t need a hyphen here. Those two adjectives don’t unite or work together to form a single modifier. They separately modify the noun, so I use a comma.
One exception to this rule on hyphenating modifiers before nouns is that if you have an adverb that ends in –ly and an adjective before a noun, you don’t need a hyphen.
My easily achieved goal was to cook a feast for my family.
The newly purchased avocados will be perfect for the guacamole.
Certain words always have hyphens:
Words with prefixes like “ex-,” “self-,” and “all-“ (ex-boyfriend, self-absorbed, all-powerful)
Numbers twenty-one to ninety-nine
Words with prefixes and a capitalized word (pro-American)
Words with prefixes that consist of a single letter (T-shirt)
Phrases that include “year old” and come before a noun (the one-year-old girl; the three-year-old; the six-year-old; but “She is six years old.”)
Apostrophes
What it is (in grammarian language): Apostrophes make words possessive, are used in contractions, and are used to make lowercase letters plural.
What it is (in the language of everyday people): Apostrophes make words possessive, so when you want to indicate that something or someone belongs to something or someone, use an apostrophe.
My cousin’s recipes are really hard to read because they’re written in hot sauce.
The recipes belong to my cousin, so I use an apostrophe to indicate possession. I think the biggest mistake people make with apostrophes is that they use them to make words plural.
These tomato’s tomatoes are fresh from my garden.
Those burrito’s burritos took forever to make!
I’ve been cooking since the early 2000’s 2000s.
I went to culinary school in the late ‘90’s ‘90s.
Apostrophes make things plural only when you’re dealing with single letters.
I offered to help my mom cook dinner because I’m trying to mind my p’s and q’s.
And lastly (but you already know this), apostrophes indicate omissions of letters, so you see them in contractions like “can’t” (for cannot) or “don’t” (for do not).
Ellipses
What it is (in grammarian language): Ellipses are used to show that words from a quote have been omitted.
What it is (in the language of everyday people): Like semicolons, ellipses are kind of thrown around in sentences whenever people feel like taking a break from a comma. But ellipses do have a purpose. If you quote someone and leave out some material from that quote, use an ellipsis.
The New York Times wrote an article about Huy Fong Foods, maker of Sriracha. It quoted the president of Huy Fong: “We’re happy to see these chefs use our sriracha. But we sell 80 percent of our products to Asian companies, for distribution through Asian channels. That’s the market we know. That’s the market we want to serve.”
If I then used this quote but left some words out, I’d write the quote like this:
“We’re happy to see these chefs use our sriracha. Bet we sell 80 percent of our products to Asian companies…That’s the market we want to serve.”
Simple enough, right?
I hope this guide helps make punctuation marks less enigmatic. The great thing about understanding punctuation marks is that unlike words that are slowly eroding (I think we may be saying goodbye to “whom” soon), punctuation marks will always be around in some shape or form. Though who’s to say whether or not we have some new punctuation marks crop up in the future.