English Punctuation Guide - English Writing Lesson
Oxford Online English
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0:01 Hi, I’m Kasia. Welcome to Oxford Online English!
0:04 In this lesson, you can learn about English punctuation. You’ll see the most common punctuation marks in English, what they’re called, and how
0:14 to use them. This lesson has many sections.
0:19 If you want, you can just watch the sections you need. Using punctuation correctly is critical for your English writing.
0:29 Punctuation problems can make a bad impression or lead to misunderstandings. If you need to improve your English writing, check out our website: Oxford Online English
0:41 dot com. There are many free lessons to help you with your writing, or you can take writing lessons
0:49 with one of our professional teachers. But first, let’s look at one of the most basic English punctuation marks.
1:00 A full stop is also called a period in American English. Use a full stop at the end of a full sentence.
1:09 Don’t put a space before the full stop; put one after. A full sentence could be short and simple, like this: ‘I got there early.’
1:22 A full sentence could also be longer and more complex, like this: ‘Although my train arrived late, and I was sure I wouldn’t make it on time, I actually got there slightly early.’
1:35 Be careful; the idea of a ‘full sentence’ is not flexible, and it depends on the grammatical structure of the sentence.
1:45 For example, can you see the mistake in this sentence? The first part, which ends with the word ‘there’, is a full sentence.
1:55 You can’t choose to put a comma and continue; you need a full stop, or a semicolon, or you need to add a conjunction.
2:06 Learning about sentence structure, and how to make clauses into longer sentences, is important if you want to use English punctuation correctly.
2:17 Full stops are also used in some abbreviations—when you make words shorter. There are three kinds of abbreviation.
2:27 One: abbreviations which *never* have full stops, like ‘BBC’, ‘CIA’ or ‘UN’. Two: abbreviations which *always* use full stops, like ‘e.g.’, ‘i.e.’ or ‘etc.’
2:43 Three… wait, can you guess? Some abbreviations are sometimes written with full stops, and sometimes without.
2:55 For example, mister, doctor, or AM and PM for talking about the time. Titles, like ‘mister’, ‘Mrs’ or ‘doctor’, are generally written without a full stop
3:08 in British English, and with one in American English. In British English, it’s more common to write AM and PM in lower-case letters with
3:22 full stops. In American English, it’s more common to use capital letters and no full stops.
3:30 However, both forms are commonly used and you can choose which you prefer. Commas have three main jobs.
3:43 Two of them are very simple. First, use a comma to separate items in a list, like this: ‘Their house has two bedrooms,
3:53 a large living room, two bathrooms and a terrace.’ After each item in your list, put a comma.
4:01 Use the word ‘and’ between the last two items on your list: ‘To make this, you’ll need eggs, flour and sugar.’
4:12 You can choose to put a comma before ‘and’ or not. Both styles are possible!
4:18 You also need a comma with certain conjunctions, particularly ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘or’.
4:26 For example: ‘You can ask her, but I don’t think she’ll agree.’ ‘I won’t be there till ten, so don’t wait for me.’
4:38 The last way to use commas is also the most complicated. Use a comma—or often two commas, in a pair—to add non-essential information to your sentence.
4:52 What does ‘non-essential’ mean? It means that you could remove the information, and the sentence would still make sense and
5:02 have the same basic meaning. This is common when you use an adverb or linking phrase at the start of a sentence.
5:11 For example: ‘Apparently, he’s been suffering from depression for several years.’ It’s also common when you add extra information in the middle of a sentence, like this: ‘Yakutsk,
5:27 which is in northern Siberia, has the coldest winters of any city in the world.’ Colons have one main job: they introduce examples, explanations or details.
5:44 Look at one example: ‘Rapid urbanisation has led to multiple problems: congestion, air pollution and a shortage of affordable housing for families.’
5:57 Here, the sentence before the colon mentions a general idea—multiple problems—and the sentence after the colon explains what these problems are.
6:11 This is very common with colons; you mention something general before the colon, then you explain it in more detail after the colon.
6:20 Let’s see two more examples of this: ‘I can promise you one thing: you won’t regret your decision.’
6:29 ‘He left all of his money to his best friend in the whole world: his cat.’ Semicolons are most similar to a full stop.
6:43 They’re used at the end of a full sentence. So, what’s the difference?
6:49 Using a semicolon shows that your ideas before and after the semicolon are connected. For example: ‘He’s so stubborn; it’s impossible to convince him to change his ideas
7:02 even a little.’ Here, you have two sentences, but they’re both talking about the same idea: him and
7:11 his stubborn character. The semicolon emphasises that the ideas are connected.
7:18 You never *need* to use a semicolon, but they can be very useful. Using a semicolon is a very easy way to make connections between your ideas, which can
7:29 help you to write clearly and efficiently. When you use a semicolon, you don’t need to use any conjunctions or linking phrases.
7:39 For example: ‘Companies won’t consider applications which look rushed; it’s better to apply to fewer companies, but put more time into each application.’
7:52 However, there are some linking words which can be used with a semicolon, like ‘however’: ‘I don’t regret it; however, I would do things differently if I had another chance.’
8:12 Like commas, apostrophes have more than one job, which can make them more difficult to use correctly.
8:20 Firstly, use an apostrophe in contractions to replace a missing letter. For example: ‘She doesn’t eat cheese.’
8:30 ‘You’re right about that.’ You also use an apostrophe to show that something belongs to a person: ‘Why have you got Dean’s
8:40 jacket?’ You can even connect multiple nouns together like this: ‘Her mother’s cousin’s son
8:49 won a Nobel Prize.’ What if the word you want to use already ends with ‘s’?
8:57 Here’s the rule: if the ‘s’ after the apostrophe is pronounced, then you should write it, too: ‘We met at Boris’s barbecue.’
9:10 If you don’t pronounce an extra ‘s’, then don’t write one; just add an apostrophe to the end of the word, like this: ‘We could stay at my parents’ house for a couple of
9:21 days.’ Finally, you don’t generally use an apostrophe to write plurals.
9:29 Even if you’re making a proper name plural, like: ‘There were four Ambers in my group’, you don’t use an apostrophe for the plural.
9:37 However, there’s one exception to this. Do you know it?
9:44 If you need to make a letter plural, then you add an apostrophe, like this: ‘How many m’s are there in ‘accommodation’?’
9:58 Hyphens are used to make compound words, especially compound adjectives. Compound words are words made of two or more other words.
10:10 For example: ‘It’s a six-hour flight to Mumbai.’ The adjective ‘six-hour’ is made from the two words ‘six’ and ‘hour’, and
10:21 you use a hyphen to connect the two parts. Here’s another example: ‘It was surprisingly tasty for a five-dollar meal.’
10:32 However, hyphen use in compound words is inconsistent and changing. Generally, the trend is to use fewer hyphens, but there are some cases where you need to
10:45 use a hyphen every time. Compound words made with numbers almost always have hyphens.
10:54 For example: ‘They have a three-year-old daughter.’ The adjective ‘three-year-old’ is made with a number, and it’s always written with
11:05 hyphens. You also need to use hyphens when you use certain prefixes, like ‘ex-’ or ‘self-’.
11:12 Words with the prefix ‘non-’ are also often hyphenated. For example: ‘His ex-wife was promoted and is now his direct manager.’
11:24 ‘Non-smokers generally need to pay much less for health insurance.’ ‘Self-driving cars may become popular one day, but for now the technology is too underdeveloped.’
11:38 If you add a prefix to a proper noun or a number, you also need a hyphen, as in: ‘anti-European’ ‘post-1950 politics’ Finally, you also need to use a hyphen in
11:54 compound numbers and fractions. For example: ‘three-quarters of the population’
12:02 ‘twenty-three’ ‘twenty-three’ If you're not sure whether to use a hyphen in a number or not, just write the number.
12:15 Dashes might look like hyphens, but they aren’t the same. First, there are two kinds of dashes, called en dashes and em dashes.
12:26 En dashes have a space on either side of the dash – like this. Em dashes join onto the words before and after—like this.
12:39 You don’t need to worry about this; both en dashes and em dashes do the same job. Choose one and stick with it.
12:50 So, what do you use dashes for? Dashes are used to add extra information to a sentence.
12:58 Remember that commas can also do this. ‘Extra’ information means that you could remove the information from the sentence and
13:07 everything would still make sense. Dashes are preferable when the extra information doesn’t fit well with the grammar or flow
13:19 of the sentence. For example: ‘He had escaped—or so he thought.’
13:27 Whether something fits the ‘flow’ of your sentence or not is subjective. That means you can often choose whether to use dashes or commas to add some extra information
13:40 to your sentence. For example: ‘The number of stars in the Milky Way—including many which are undetectable—is
13:49 estimated to be over 400 billion.’ Here, you could replace the dashes with commas.
13:57 Both versions are correct. However, we recommend choosing dashes when you can.
14:02 That’s because dashes only do one job, whereas commas can do multiple jobs. Using dashes makes things clearer, because your reader doesn’t have to think about
14:15 why the punctuation is there. There are two kinds of speech marks: single and double.
14:25 Often, they do the same thing, and it doesn’t matter which you use. However, we recommend that you use double speech marks when you’re quoting what someone
14:37 said. For example: He stood up and said “I wouldn’t do it if you paid me a million dollars.”
14:46 “Being lucky is more important than being talented,” were the first words of her speech. Before the speech marks, you can put a comma, a colon, or nothing.
15:02 Using a comma is more common, but we recommend you use nothing, because it’s more efficient. Whatever you choose, try to be consistent!
15:15 There are also different opinions about whether final punctuation—like a full stop at the end of a quote—should go inside or outside the speech marks.
15:24 Again, it doesn’t really matter; the most important thing is to be consistent. Speech marks can be used in other ways, too.
15:37 Look at two examples: Paying 100 euros for ‘luxury economy’ was not a good idea! Many cities in the ‘special economic development zone’ are practically ghost towns.
15:52 Speech marks can be used to express irony, sarcasm or scepticism. For example, putting ‘luxury economy’ in speech marks shows that there was nothing
16:04 luxurious about the plane journey. In the second example, you put ‘special economic development zone’ in speech marks
16:14 to express irony; if many cities are ghost towns, then there’s clearly not much economic development there.
16:23 You also use speech marks when you refer to words as words. What does that mean?
16:31 Look at two examples: ‘Millennium’ is a difficult word to spell! Why did you use ‘plethora’ here?’
16:42 Here, the words ‘millennium’ and ‘plethora’ are used indirectly, to refer to the words themselves, rather than the ideas.
16:52 Generally, we recommend using double speech marks to quote what someone said, and single speech marks for everything else.
17:02 However, you may see different styles. Like commas and dashes, parentheses can be used to add some extra, non-essential information
17:15 to your sentence. Often, the information in parentheses is a date, a name or a statistic.
17:23 For example: ‘Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was one of the most famous poets of the revolution era.’
17:33 ‘The percentage of under-30s doing regular exercise was lower (45%) than that of people over 45 (52%).’
17:45 Using parentheses to add statistics and figures is an efficient method to add numbers and other supporting data to your writing.
17:56 You can also use parentheses to show that your reader can choose how to understand what you’re saying.
18:04 For example: ‘Write your suggestion(s) here.’ By adding ‘s’ in parentheses, you mean that you can write one suggestion, or more
18:16 than one, as you prefer. Try to avoid using parentheses to add longer ideas to your sentence.
18:25 For example: ‘Consumption of processed meat (which has been linked to many diseases, including colon cancer) is rising in many parts of the world.’
18:37 This is not a good example of using parentheses. It would be better to add the additional information using commas or dashes instead.
18:48 In this case, commas would be best. Question marks are simple to use; add them at the end of a direct question, like this:
19:01 ‘What time is it?’ ‘How old are you?’
19:07 Direct questions can be longer, with more complex structure: ‘Could you tell me how to get to the train station?’
19:15 However, if you’re reporting what someone else said, then it’s not a question, and you shouldn’t use a question mark: ‘She asked me how to get to the train station.’
19:29 Exclamation marks add some emphasis or emotion to a sentence. For example: ‘It’s so cold in here!’
19:38 ‘There’s a snake!’ Unless you’re writing something very informal, it’s generally good style to use exclamation
19:47 marks minimally. Overusing them will make them meaningless.
19:53 Like most final punctuation, you shouldn’t put a space before a question mark or an exclamation mark, but you do need a space afterwards.
20:03 OK, we have a question for you: which English punctuation do you find the most confusing? Please let us know in the comments!
20:15 Thanks for watching! See you next time!