| Term | Definition |
|---|
| period | a punctuation mark placed at the end of a declarative sentence that makes a statement. |
| comma | Use to separate the elements in a series (three or more things), to connect two independent clauses, and to set off introductory elements. |
| colon | Use before a list or an explanation that is preceded by a clause that can stand by itself. |
| semi-colon | Used to help sort out a monster list or to separate closely related independent clauses. |
| exclamation point | Use at the end of an emphatic declaration, interjection, or command; usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume. |
| question mark | a punctuation mark placed at the end of a sentence to indicate a question |
| dash | Use as a super-comma or set of super-commas to set off parenthetical elements, especially when those elements contain internal forms of punctuation |
| apostrophe | Use to create possessive forms ('s), contractions, and some plurals or to show the omission of letters or numbers. |
| hyphen | It is used for both: words to join and to separate a word at the end of a line. It is often confused with the dashes. Use to create compound words or when writing numbers twenty-one to ninety-nine and fractions (five-eighths, one-fourth). |
| quotation marks | " " Use to set off material that represents quoted or spoken language; both a phrase or a word. |
| parentheses | used to insert a word, clause or even a sentence into a sentence to which it does not grammatically belong. Used to include material that you want to de-emphasize or that wouldn't normally fit into the flow of your text but you want to include nonetheless. |
| italics | used to indicate foreign phrases, genus names, and book and magazine titles. |
| uppercase letters | used as the first letter of a sentence or proper names and sometimes for emphasis |
| lowercase letters | the smaller form of letters, as opposed to upper case |
| nominative case | a noun that is doing something; category of nouns serving as the grammatical subject of a verb. Examples: he pushed the door and it opened; she paused |
| objective case | a catch-all case for any situation except nominative or genitive; Examples: I saw her; I gave her the book; with her. |
| possessive case | expressing ownership. Examples: the house is owned by someone |
| declarative sentence | the most common type of sentence, commonly makes a statement: Example: I am going home. |
| imperative sentence | this sentence commands or tells someone to do something: Example: Go to work at 7:30 tomorrow morning. |
| exclamatory sentence | This sentence is generally a more emphatic form of statement: Example: What a wonderful day this is! |
| interrogative sentence | This type of sentence is a question and is commonly used to request information - but sometimes not. Example: When are you going to work? |
| negative sentence | This sentence denies that a statement is true. Example: I am not going home. |
| abbreviations | a shortened form of a word or phrase |
| grammatical genders | also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once. |
| Masculine gender | includes most words that refer to males. Examples: actor, he, mister |
| Feminine gender | includes most words that refer to females. Examples: actress, she, miss |
| Neuter gender | includes mostly words that do not refer to males or females. Examples: it, |
| brackets | [ ] Use to include explanatory words or phrases within quoted language. |
| Ellipsis | ... Use when you're quoting material and you want to omit some words. |
| Slash or Slant | / Use to indicate a choice between the words it separates. |
Combine with other sets
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