Punctuation

Use common sense. Punctuation should help reading - to make clear the thought being expressed. If punctuation does not help clarify the message, it should not be there.

When more than one punctuation mark (not including quotation marks, parentheses or brackets) could be used at the same place in a sentence, use only the "stronger" - or more necessary - of the two. Question marks and exclamation points, for example, are stronger than commas and periods: "Have all the ballots finally been counted?" asked the reporter. (The question mark fills the role of the comma.) The topic of his speech is "We demand justice now!" (No period following the exclamation point.)

Ampersand (&)
Apostrophe (')
Brackets ([ ])
Colon (:)
Comma (,)
Dash (—)
Ellipsis ( ... )
Exclamation point (!)
Hyphen (-)
Parentheses ( )
Period (.)
Question Mark (?)
Quotation Marks (" ")
Semicolon (;)
Virgule (/)

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