# English Punctuation Guide - English Writing Lesson

**Channel:** Oxford Online English
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfYq2ng9s4E
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/gfYq2ng9s4E

## Chapters

- 0:00 — Introduction and Full Stops
- 3:40 — Using Commas, Colons, Semicolons
- 8:11 — Apostrophes and Hyphen Rules
- 12:14 — Dashes, Speech Marks, Parentheses
- 18:54 — Question Marks and Exclamation Marks

## Transcript

**[0:00]:** hi I'm kasha welcome to Oxford online English in this lesson you can learn about English punctuation you'll see the most common punctuation marks in English what they're called and how to use them this lesson has many sections if you want you can just watch the sections you need using punctuation correctly is critical for your English writing punctuation problems can make a bad impression or lead to misunderstandings if you need to improve your English writing check out our website Oxford online English comm there are many free lessons to help you with your writing or you can take riding lessons with one of our professional teachers but first let's look at one of the most basic English punctuation marks a full-stop is also called a period in American English use a full stop at the end of a full sentence don't put a space before the full stop put one after a full sentence could be short and simple

**[1:16]:** like this I got there early a full sentence can also be longer and more complex like this although my train arrived late and I was sure I wouldn't make it on time I actually got there slightly early be careful the idea of a full sentence is not flexible and it depends on the grammatical structure of the sentence for example can you see the mistakes in this sentence the first part which ends with the word there is a full sentence you can't choose to put a comma and continue you need a full stop or a semicolon or you need to add a conjunction learning about sentence structure and how to make clauses into longer sentences is important if you want to use English punctuation correctly full stops are also used in some abbreviations when you make words shorter there are three kinds of abbreviation one abbreviations which never have full stops like BBC CIA or UN

**[2:34]:** two abbreviations which always use full stops like eg ie or etc 3 wait can you get some abbreviations are sometimes written with full stops and sometimes without for example mister doctor or AM and PM for talking about the time titles like mister missus or doctor are generally written without a full stop in British English and with one in American English in British English it's more common to write AM and PM in lowercase letters with full stops in American English it's more common to use capital letters and no full stops however both forms are commonly used and you can choose which you prefer

**[3:40]:** Camas have three main jobs two of them are very simple first use a comma to separate items in the list like this their house has two bedrooms large living room two bathrooms and a terrace after each item in your list put a comma use the word and between the last two items on your list to make this you'll need eggs flour and sugar you can choose to put a comma before end or not both styles are possible you also need a comma with certain conjunctions particularly and but so and/or for example you can ask her but I don't think she'll agree I won't be there till 10 so don't wait for me the last way to use commas is also the most complicated use a comma or often two commas in a pair to add non-essential information to your sentence what does non-essential mean it means that you could remove the information and the sentence

**[5:01]:** would still make sense and have the same basic meaning this is common when you use an adverb or linking phrase at the start of a sentence for example apparently he's been suffering from depression for several years it's also common when you add extra information in the middle of a sentence like this Yakutsk which is another in Siberia has the coldest winters of any city in the world

**[5:36]:** currents have one main job they introduce examples explanations or details look at one example rapid urbanization has led to multiple problems congestion air pollution and a shortage of affordable housing for families here the sentence before the colon mentions a general idea multiple problems and the sentence after the colon explains what these problems are this is very common with colons you mentioned something general before the colon then you explain it in more detail after the colon let's see two more examples of this I can promise you one thing you won't regret your decision he left all of his money to his best friend in the whole world his cat

**[6:39]:** semicolons are most similar to a full stop they're used at the end of a full sentence so what's the difference using a semicolon shows that your ideas before and after the semicolon are connected for example he's so stubborn it's impossible to convince him to change his ideas even a little here you have two sentences but they're both talking about the same idea him and his stubborn character the semicolon emphasizes that the ideas are connected you never need to use a semicolon but they can be very useful using a semicolon is a very easy way to make connections between your ideas which can help you to write clearly and efficiently when you use a semicolon you don't need to use any conjunctions or linking phrases for example companies won't consider applications which look rushed it's better to apply to fewer companies but put more time into each application however there are some linking words which can

**[7:57]:** be used with a semicolon like however I don't regret it however I would do things differently if I had another chance

**[8:11]:** like commerce apostrophes have more than one job which can make them more difficult to use correctly firstly use an apostrophe in contractions to replace a missing letter for example she doesn't eat cheese you're right about that you also use an apostrophe to show that something belongs to a person why have you got Dean's jacket you can even connect multiple nouns together like this her mother's cousins son won a Nobel Prize what if the word you want to use already ends with an S here's the rule if the S after the apostrophe is pronounced then you should write it too we met at Boris's barbecue if you don't pronounce an extra s then don't write one just add an apostrophe at the end of the word like this we could stay at my parents house for a couple of days finally you don't generally use an apostrophe to write plurals even if you're making a proper

**[9:30]:** name plural like there were four Amber's in my group you don't use an apostrophe for the plural however there's one exception to this do you know it if you need to make a letter plural then you add an apostrophe like this how many M's are there in accommodation

**[9:58]:** hyphens are used to make compound words especially compound adjectives compound words are words made of two or more other words for example it's a six-hour flight to Mumbai the adjective 6-hour is made from the two words six and hour and you see a hyphen to connect the two parts here's another example it was surprisingly tasty for a five dollar meal however - use in compound words is inconsistent and changing generally the trend is to use fewer hyphens but there are some cases where you need to use a hyphen every time compound words made with numbers almost always have hyphens for example they have a three-year-old daughter the adjective three-year-old is made with a number and it's always written with hyphens you also need to use hyphens when you use certain preferences like X or self words with the prefix nun are also often hyphenated for example his ex-wife was promoted and is now his direct

**[11:21]:** manager non-smokers generally need to pay much less for health insurance self-driving cars may become popular one day but for now the technology is too underdeveloped if you add a prefix to a proper noun or a number you also need a - as in anti-european post-1950 politics finally you also need to use a hyphen in compound numbers and fractions for example three-quarters of the population 23 if you're not sure whether to use a hyphen in a number or not just write the number

**[12:14]:** dashes might look like hyphens but they aren't the same first there are two kinds of dashes called n dashes and Emma dashes and dashes have a space on either side of the dash like this M dashes join onto the words before and after like this you don't need to worry about this both n dashes and M dashes do the same job choose one and stick with it so what do we use dashes for dashes are used to add extra information to a sentence remember that commas can also do this extra information means that you could remove the information from the sentence and everything would still make sense dashes are preferable when the extra information doesn't fit well with the grammar or flow of the sentence for example he had escaped also he thought whether something fits the flow of your sentence or not is subjective that means you can often choose whether to use dashes

**[13:37]:** or commas to add some extra information to your sentence for example the number of stars in the Milky Way including many which are undetectable is estimated to be over 400 billion here you could replace the dashes with commas both versions are correct however we recommend choosing dashes when you can that's because dashes only do one job whereas commas can do multiple jobs using dashes makes things clearer because your reader doesn't have to think about why the punctuation is there

**[14:20]:** there are two kinds of speech marks single and double often they do the same thing and it doesn't matter which you use however we recommend that you use double speech marks when you're quoting what someone said for example he stood up and said I wouldn't do it if you paid me a million dollars being lucky is more important than being talented were the first words of her speech before the speech marks you can put a comma a colon or nothing using a comma is more common but we recommend you use nothing because it's more efficient whatever you choose try to be consistent there are also different opinions about whether final punctuation like a full stop at the end of a quote should go inside or outside the speech marks again it doesn't really matter the most important thing is to be consistent speech marks can be used in other ways to look at two examples

**[15:38]:** paying 100 euros for luxury economy was not a good idea many cities in this special economic development zone are practically ghost towns speech marks can be used to express irony sarcasm or skepticism for example putting luxury economy in speech marks shows that there was nothing luxurious about the plane journey in the second example you put special economic development zone in speech marks to express irony if many cities are ghost towns then there's clearly not much economic development there you also use speech marks when you refer to words as words what does that mean look at two examples millennium is a difficult word to spell why did you use plethora here hear the words millennium and plethora are used indirectly to refer to the words themselves rather than the ideas generally we recommend using double speech marks to quote what someone said and single speech marks for everything else however you may see different styles

**[17:08]:** like commas and dashes parentheses can be used to add some extra non-essential information to your sentence often the information in parentheses is a date a name or a statistic for example Vladimir Mayakovsky 1893 to 1930 was one of the most famous poets of the Revolution era the percentage of under 30 s doing regular exercise was lower 45% than that of people over 45 52 % using parentheses to add statistics and figures is an efficient method to add numbers and other supporting data to your writing you can also use parentheses to show that your reader can choose how to understand what you're saying for example write your suggestion suggestions here by adding s in parentheses you mean that you can write one suggestion or more than one as you prefer try to avoid using parentheses to add longer ideas to your sentence for example consumption of processed meat which has been linked to many diseases including

**[18:32]:** colon cancer is rising in many parts of the world that is not a good example of using parentheses it would be better to add the additional information using commas or dashes instead in this case commas would be best

**[18:54]:** question marks are simple to use add them at the end of a direct question like this what time is it how old are you direct questions can be longer with more complex structure could you tell me how to get to the train station however if you're reporting what someone else said then it's not a question and you shouldn't use a question mark she asked me how to get to the train station exclamation marks add some emphasis or emotion to a sentence for example it's so cold in here there's a snake unless you're writing something very informal it's generally good style to use exclamation marks minimally overusing them will make them meaningless like most final punctuation you shouldn't put a space before a question mark or an exclamation mark but you do need a space afterwards okay we have a question for you which English punctuation do you find the most confusing please let us know

**[20:12]:** in the comments thanks for watching see you next time