Summary of Punctuation Marks
Punctuation is the system of symbols (. , ! - : etc) that we use to separate sentences and parts of sentences, and to make their meaning clear. Each symbol is called a "punctuation mark".
| Mark | Name | Example |
| . | full stop/period | I like English. |
| , | comma | I speak English, French and Thai. |
| ; | semi-colon | I don't often go swimming; I prefer to play tennis. |
| : | colon | You have two choices: finish the work today or lose the contract. |
| - | hyphen | This is a rather out-of-date book. |
| — | dash | In each town—London, Paris and Rome—we stayed in youth hostels. |
| ? | question mark | Where is Shangri-La? |
| ! | exclamation mark | "Help!" she cried. "I'm drowning!" |
| / | oblique/slash | Please press your browser's Refresh/Reload button. |
| " | quotation marks | "I love you," she said. |
| ' | apostrophe | This is John's car. |
| ( ) | round brackets | I went to Bagkok (my favourite city) and stayed there for two weeks. |
| [ ] | square brackets | The newspaper reported that the hostages [most of them French] had been released. |
| { } | braces | |
| ... | ellipsis | One happy customer wrote: "This is the best program...that I have ever seen." |
