Punctuation 31
the passive voice; their verbs are activated by other verbs; their sentences are long
and complicated; they prefer long and seldom-used words to the short equivalent
words common in every-day communication; jargon is rife; and so on.’
Colons The three main uses of the colon all have a sense of introducing something
that is to follow: a list, or an explanation, or a quotation. ‘These systems make
checks such as: whether it contains a verb; whether it is overly complex; whether
the subject agrees with the verb; or whether stock phrases being used.’
Dashes and hyphens They are different, and each has its own specific uses. You
should find out how to create both on your word processor.
- The dash (or em rule, ‘—’) has two principal uses: to indicate an abrupt change
in the sentence structure, and to indicate material that is in parenthesis. Use spar-
ingly. As with all parentheses, use two or none. - The hyphen ‘-’ is used to build up complex words. The most common are words
built up from suffixes such as sub- or non- (these suffixes should never stand
alone as separate words). As time goes on, some of these complex words become
words in their own right, and no longer need the hyphen: thus sub-zero, but non-
conformist. Consult your dictionary.
Compound adjectives can be tricky. One student came out with ‘sulphur reduced
residual fuel oil fired brick kiln’. Where should he have put the hyphens? Another
produced a ‘non-cost of living indexed pension’. The first of these is a mixture
of compound adjectives and compound nouns, some of which don’t take hyphens
(such as brick kiln). The best solution is to break it up a bit. I suggest ‘brick kiln
fired with sulphur-reduced residual fuel-oil’ and ‘pension that is not indexed for the
cost of living’.
Exclamations Avoid them! They are annoying!
Capitalization Some researchers seem to like capitalizing Important Terms and
descriptions of Common Processes, almost as if they were headings embedded in
the text. This excess of uppercase letters seems to say ‘the author is unfamiliar with
academic English’. If the meaning is still clear with a lowercase initial (and the
word isn’t a proper noun) then don’t use a capital.
Brackets Curved brackets (parentheses), and square brackets have quite separate
uses. Don’t use them interchangeably; and don’t use other types of bracket, such
as curly brackets (braces), except perhaps in mathematical expressions; they don’t
have an agreed meaning.
Quotations The principal use of quotation marks is to enclose the exact words of a
writer or speaker, whether or not these form a complete sentence or sentences. For
this purpose, use single quotation marks everywhere, and double quotation marks
only for quotations within quotations—or, if you prefer, the other way round. But
be consistent.
There are other ways of indicating quotations, and other uses of quotation marks.
These are the main ones: