While poor punctuation normally won’t change the meaning of your words entirely, it can make sentences harder to read easily and can distract from your message.
Here we look at a few of the most common punctuation marks and how you are likely to use them in your professional or academic writing.
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comma , |
Used to separate: ● items in a list: The project provided training, start-up kits and mentoring. ● clauses: After the team leader approves the time off, they update the team calendar. Don’t join too many clauses together with commas. Keep your sentences short. |
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semicolon ; |
Used to separate items in a list that already contain commas: The three teams involved in the event are Development, Outreach, and Communications; Programmes; and Health. If you use semicolons a lot, you are probably not using them correctly! They aren’t common. |
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colon : |
Used to: ● introduce bullet points: see “Used to:” above ● introduce information: There are three focus regions: central, north and west. Don’t add hyphens or dashes to your colons (:-), it looks messy. |
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hyphen - |
Used to join compound adjectives: The project created an easy-to-use ordering system for local health centres. Make sure you are not over-hyphenating, e.g., don’t write things like “e-mail” or “co-operate”. |
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en dash – |
Used to show a range: The workshop is 1 p.m.–5 p.m. Dashes are not on standard keyboards — they are on the symbols tab of the “emoji panel”. Open this panel by pressing the Windows key and the full-stop (period) key. |
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em dash — |
Used to highlight information or a conclusion: The editing request system works on a first come, first served basis — so don’t wait until the last minute! Don’t use too many dashes in your writing, it can start to look too informal. |