Unfortunately, even the smallest punctuation mistakes students tend to make in their papers can mess up the final college grade. As a result, students have to put off academic career and start a bitter struggle with punctuation failures. Read and remember these basic punctuation tips to make your college life better, smarter, wiser and faster. Every tip is worked out by qualified editors and expert writers so that you can easily call them real Gurus!
When you are going to use several words in order to build up a noun, remember all those words should be hyphenated. For instance, all the words like “what”, “the”, “hell” should be used as an adjective phrase in order to make a description attitude in the sentence like this one: “She had what-the-hell expression”.
The abbreviations like “i.e.,” “etc.,” and “e.g.” and all the abbreviations for the academic degrees should be accordingly punctuated and parenthetic.
In opposition to what many of us have learnt from high school lessons, if a singular noun ends with “s” you should add an extra “s” that goes after the apostrophe if you pronounce this “s”.
For instance:
My boss’s laptop
Charles’s telephone
If you find it difficult to pronounce the extra letter “s”, in such case you have to only add up an apostrophe.
For instance:
Los Angeles’ Hollywood Walk of Fame
When you’re going to place a direct short question in the paper sentence, the question should be set off using commas. Don’t forget to make use of a question mark at the end of the sentence.
For instance:
We’re going to watch new movie with Johnny Depp, aren’t we, after the dinner?
At high schools (typing classes) we were usually taught to space twice at the end of the sentence after a period. Well, that’s a good idea for a typewriter. Nonetheless, the majority of us make use of PC with proportional characters. In such case, it is recommended to space after the period only once.
You have to make use of a colon after an introductory clause that includes a full thought and then will be followed by a listing.
For instance:
To join in a fun-filled trip to Las Vegas, we have to fill in the following documentation: an application form, written instructions.
