IV. PUNCTUATION

A. Apostrophes

1) Use only an apostrophe when making possessive a singular proper name ending in s.

Achilles’ heel
Dickens’ novels
Williams’ speech

2) In making the plural of figures and letters, do not use an apostrophe.

The 1980s are here.
The three Rs
Two CEUs

3) Punctuate years of college classes with an apostrophe (single closing quote). Please note that when keying this on a computer, the single opening quote will automatically appear when you first insert the single quote. You must go back and change it to a closing quote (hit the key twice, then delete the opening quote).

Class of ’76
John White, ’19

4) Associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees should always be written with an ’s. Never write masters’ degree, for example, or associate degree.

5) Use primes (keyboard apostrophe and quotes) to designate inches and feet and navigational notation.

12", 12'
67°3'16"

6) For Web content, primes are acceptable replacements for apostrophes and quote marks.

B. Bold

1) As a general rule, we do not bold/highlight punctuation that immediately follows a bold/highlighted word. We do make exceptions in some cases for clarity or as part of a graphic treatment.

C. Bullets

Bullets are graphic devices that substitute for alphanumeric designation of items in a list. In a bulleted list the graphic device obviates normal grammatical punctuation.

1) In bulleted lists within text passages, the bullet is the punctuation. No other punctuation is required to separate listed items. Do not use commas or semicolons at the end of each item.

2) If an item in the bulleted list is a complete sentence, then the first word should be capped and there should be a period at the end of the sentence. If the item is a nonsentence fragment, then the first word should be lowercased, with a period placed at the end of the last item in the list.

3) Avoid mixing sentence and nonsentence items in a bulleted list.

D. Commas, Semicolons, Colons, Periods

1) Use a comma before the words and and or in a series.

The Carolina Band, University Chorus, and South Carolina String Quartet
will perform on Tuesday.

2) Place a comma after digits signifying thousands, except when reference is made to temperature or to SAT scores.

1,150 students, but 1100 degrees F, and an SAT score of 1143

3) Follow a statement which introduces a direct quotation of one or more paragraphs with a colon. Also use a colon after as follows.

4) Transitional words or phrases such as to wit, namely, i.e., e.g., and viz, should be immediately preceded by a comma or semicolon and followed by a comma.

5) When listing names with cities or states, punctuate as follows:

George Andrews is a Camden, S.C., native.
Carol Green, Columbia, is vice president.

6) When writing a date, place a comma between the day and the year as well as after the year.

July 4, 1980, dawned clear.
Tuesday, July 6, was rainy.

7) Do not place a comma between the month and year when the day is not mentioned.

June 1980

8) No comma is needed when referring to a school semester and year. The term for the semester does not get capitalized, and words like the and of are not necessary.

He retired in fall 2007.
not He retired in fall, 2007.

9) Do not use a comma before or after Jr. or Sr., and do not precede Roman numerals such as I, II, or III with a comma. (Note: This follows both AP style and CMOS style preference.)

Please call Mr. William Case Jr. for the report.
Contact Don James III for further information.

Exception: In formal social documents, commas may be retained with Jr. or Sr. according to the author’s preference.

9) If a phrase is within parentheses at the end of a sentence, place the period after the closing parenthesis. If a complete sentence is in parentheses, the period should be inside the closing parenthesis.

10) No word space should be used between the initials of an abbreviation or a person’s name.

U.S., J.B. White

Note: Grammatical rules regarding punctuation are often bent for the sake of visual appeal, especially in headings or display type.

E. Dashes

1) Use an en dash with no extra space before or after:

a) to indicate continuing (or inclusive) numbers, dates, times, or reference numbers.

1968–82	but	from 1968 to 1982 (never from 1968–82)
May–June 1967		from May to June 1967
10 a.m.–5 p.m.		between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.
pp. 38–45		from pages 38 to 45

b) in a compound adjective at least one element of which consists of two words or of a hyphenated word.

New York–London flight
post–Civil War period
quasi-public–quasi-private judicial body

2) Use an em dash with no extra space before or after:

a) to denote a sudden break in thought that causes an abrupt change in sentence structure.

That is all I know—actually, there is one more thing.

b) in defining or enumerating complementary elements.

The influence of three immortals—Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven—was
of great importance in his development as a musician.

c) in sentences having several elements as referents of a pronoun that is the subject
of a final, summarizing clause.

Smith, Jones, and McCoy—all felt groggy on humid days.

3) For the Web, use of two hyphens to replace an em dash is acceptable.

F. Ellipses

1) In general, treat an ellipsis as a three-letter word, constructed with three periods and a regular space on either side of the ellipsis, as shown here ( … ).

2) When the grammatical sense calls for a question mark, exclamation point, comma, or colon, the sequence is word, punctuation mark, regular space, ellipsis, e.g., “Will you come? …”

3) When material is deleted at the end of one paragraph and at the beginning of the one that follows, place an ellipsis in both locations.

4) In writing a story, do not use ellipses at the beginning and end of direct quotes that form complete sentences.

“It has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base,” Nixon said.
not
“ … it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base … ,” Nixon said.

G. Hyphens

Note: For all spelling questions, our first rule is to consult Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. If a word is not found, we check Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (unabridged). Please also note that hyphenated words can be created for the sake of clarity, at our editor's discrepancy.

1) Use the nonhyphenated spelling of a word if either spelling is acceptable.

2) Do not hyphenate the words vice president and words beginning with non, except those containing a proper noun.

non-German
nontechnical

3) Do not place a hyphen between the prefixes pre, post, semi, anti, multi, etc., and their nouns or adjectives, except before proper nouns or when two vowels with no hyphen separating them would be unclear.

predentistry
electro-optical, but preindustrial
pro-American

Exception: pre when used before law or med, as in pre-law or pre-med advising.

4) Do not place a hyphen between the prefix sub and the word to which it is attached.

subtotal

5) Hyphenate the word X-ray and use a capital X.

6) Hyphenate part-time and full-time when used as adjectives. Hyphenate any modifying word combined with well, ill, better, best, little, and lesser when used as an adjective preceding a noun. Do not hyphenate when the expression carries a modifer or when it follows a noun.

well-built engine
a moderately well built engine
The engine is well built.

7) Hyphenate a compound in which one component is a number and the other is a noun or adjective.

30-mile run
10-year-old child, but 10 years old
12,000-square-foot building

9) Whenever possible, avoid the hyphenation of proper names when breaking text lines.

10) Hyphenate sports scores; do not use an en dash.

H. Quotation marks

1) The following should be placed in quotation marks:

book series
conference presentations
dissertations and theses
essays
film series
lectures
parts of volumes (chapters, titles of papers, etc.)
radio and television episodes
short stories
single conferences/lectures (but NOT lecture series)
songs.

Note: Unpublished books (manuscripts, works in progress) do NOT get italicized. Use roman text and quotation marks only.

2) Use single quotation marks for quotations printed within other quotations.

3) If several paragraphs are to be quoted, use quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph, but at the end of the last paragraph only. No quotation marks are needed for passages set off from the text by additional space, an indent, or change of typeface.

4) Set quotation marks after periods and commas and before colons and semicolons. Exclamation points and interrogation marks that are not part of the quotation should be set outside quotation marks.

Emerson replied nervously, “There is no reason to inform the president.”

He had not defined the term “categorical imperative.”

A “zinc,” or line engraving, will be made from the sketch.

Kego had three objections to “Filmore’s Summer”: It was contrived; the characters were flat; and the dialogue was unrealistic.

The man cried, “They stole my new car!”

5) Use editor’s brackets, not parentheses, to set off editorial remarks within direct quotations. But editorial remarks should be kept to a minimum.

“Johnson saw it [the war] as a personal test of wills.”