{"id":2911,"date":"2016-02-29T11:31:41","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T19:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2911"},"modified":"2016-02-25T14:32:11","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T22:32:11","slug":"punctuation-in-english-academic-writing-part-1-period-comma-colon-and-semicolon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/punctuation-in-english-academic-writing-part-1-period-comma-colon-and-semicolon\/","title":{"rendered":"Punctuation in English Academic Writing, Part 1: Period, Comma, Colon, and Semicolon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Punctuation is one of the things you may not focus on as often as other aspects of written English. But it\u2019s quite important in English composition. You will definitely need to understand the correct use of common punctuation marks in TOEFL Writing.<\/p>\n<p>In this series of posts, we\u2019ll review the names of the most common punctuation marks in written academic English and go over the uses of each kind of punctuation mark.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Period<br \/>\n<\/strong>The period is looks like a little dot (.).In fact, when used in web or email addresses, the period is actually <em>called<\/em> a \u201cdot.\u201d That\u2019s why web-based businesses are sometimes called \u201cdot coms.\u201d It\u2019s most often used at the end of sentences to mark a sentence\u2019s grammatical end. The period also appears at the end of abbreviations, such as Mr., Ms., etc., and so on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Comma<br \/>\n<\/strong>The comma looks like a period with a little tail hanging down off of it (,). The main use of commas is grammatical. Commas separate certain kinds of clauses, phrases, and words. There are many complex rules for comma usage, actually. I\u2019ll cover those rules in a later post.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Colon<br \/>\n<\/strong>A colon looks like two periods on top of each other (:). Colons are used to introduce lists of things or examples. To give one example of colon use, I have introduced you to five forms of punctuation in this article so far: periods, commas, apostrophes, parenthesis, and colons. And let me give you another important example of colon use: introducing examples, as seen in this very sentence!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Semicolon<br \/>\n<\/strong>A semicolon looks like a comma with a period on top of it (;) Semicolons are used to put two complete sentences together, combining them into one complete sentence.In a way, semicolons are like a substitute for a period. You can take two sentences that are separated by a period and replace the period with a semicolon so that the two sentences become one. For example, you could say: Let\u2019s include semicolons in this punctuation lesson. They\u2019re pretty important to academic writing. Or you could say: Let\u2019s include semicolons in this punctuation lesson; they\u2019re pretty important to academic writing.But remember\u2014semicolons should <em>only<\/em> join to sentences together if those sentences are closely related. The idea here is to illustrate the close connection between two statements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These four punctuation marks are the most common ones for sentence-level grammar. Use these marks to divide and manage different parts of sentences in academic writing.\u00a0 In my next post on this subject, we\u2019ll take a look at two types of punctuation marks that are used to manage information rather than grammar.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Punctuation is one of the things you may not focus on as often as other aspects of written English. But it\u2019s quite important in English composition. You will definitely need to understand the correct use of common punctuation marks in TOEFL Writing. In this series of posts, we\u2019ll review the names of the most common [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13603],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-2911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.7 (Yoast SEO v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Punctuation in English Academic Writing, Part 1: Period, Comma, Colon, and Semicolon - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/punctuation-in-english-academic-writing-part-1-period-comma-colon-and-semicolon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Punctuation in English Academic Writing, Part 1: Period, Comma, Colon, and Semicolon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Punctuation is one of the things you may not focus on as often as other aspects of written English. 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Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew"],"knowsAbout":["TOEFL","IELTS","TOEIC","PET","FCE","BULATS","Eiken","SAT","ACT","GRE","GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English","Italian"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/author\/davidr\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13630,"user_id":80,"is_guest":0,"slug":"davidr","display_name":"David Recine","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Recine","first_name":"David","description":"David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT.\r\n\r\nDavid has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar?hl=en&amp;as_sdt=0%2C50&amp;q=Recine+magoosh&amp;btnG=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> many scholarly articles<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/minds.wisconsin.edu\/handle\/1793\/65479\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> his Master's Thesis<\/a> is featured on the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingwithpictures.org\/2013\/09\/research-highlight-teaching-english-language-learners-with-comics\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Reading with Pictures<\/a> website, and he's presented at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.witesol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-WITESOL-Program-FINAL-10-28-14.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> WITESOL (link to PDF)<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/interoff\/docs\/nafsaregionv_2014conference\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> NAFSA<\/a> conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru.\r\n\r\nCome join David and the Magoosh team on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew\"> Youtube<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning\"> Facebook<\/a>, and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/magooshenglish\/?hl=en\"> Instagram<\/a>, or connect with him via<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/\"> LinkedIn<\/a>!"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}