Today is a special holiday! Happy National Punctuation Day. Punctuation can be both the great love and the occasional bane of a writer's existence, and it's not strange that a love affair may crop up ...

When reading a classic book, we tend to pay attention to the themes, the characters, and the story. We say the words aloud. We notice everything, in fact, except for one crucial thing: the punctuation ...

Punctuation is a set of specific marks or symbols that we used to express the meaning of our sentences clearly and to make the flow of the text smooth. It shows us where we need to pause, it separates ...

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Word, word, word, word, word, punctuation mark. This is how we read. Sometimes there are more words, ...

A few years ago while copy editing an article, I was shocked to see something like this: “I lecture my sales staff about what I call ‘me syndrome,’” Jones said. What shocked me was the punctuation.

Double quotation marks are used for direct quotations and titles of compositions such as books, plays, movies, songs, lectures and TV shows. They also can be used to indicate irony and introduce an ...

A question mark ( ? ) is used to close a direct question. (What time is it?) Do not use a question mark with an indirect question. (He asked if we knew the time.) Put a question mark inside closing ...