Glossary

apostrophe	a punctuation mark generally used in order 1) to show the omission of one or more letters in a contraction, and 2) to show ownership or possession



colon	a punctuation mark that begins a formal list, separates closely related main clauses, and marks a formal appositive



comma	a punctuation mark whose three most common uses are to 1) introduce a main clause, 2) mark non-essential word groups, and 3) divide main clauses.



dash	a punctuation mark used for a variety of purposes, but most often to begin a series or interrupt a thought



hyphen	a punctuation mark used to join words and show where words are divided into syllables



quotation marks	punctuation marks most often used to enclose spoken or written words



semicolon	a punctuation mark used to divide (or link) main clauses without using a coordinating conjunction (and/but) and to separate word groups in a series that contains commas

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