Parts of Speech
This type of noun refers to a specific person, place, or thing, and according to the rules, it must always be capitalized.
What is a Proper Noun?
These are used to enclose direct quotations and dialogue and must always be used in pairs.
What are quotation marks?
You must use commas to separate three or more of these in a sentence (e.g., "I need eggs, cheese, and flour").
What are items in a list or series.
This is where a colon is required in the following sentence:
The teacher’s desk was covered in essential supplies a red pen, a stack of permission slips, and a half-empty coffee mug.
What is after supplies?
The teacher’s desk was covered in essential supplies: a red pen, a stack of permission slips, and a half-empty coffee mug.
A semicolon can be used to join two independent clauses by taking the place of a comma and one of these coordinating conjunctions.
What is FANBOYS?
This is the name for the specific word or group of words that a pronoun refers to or replaces.
What is an antecedent?
In written dialogue, this is the formatting step required every time a new speaker begins talking.
What is starting a new paragraph?
You must use a comma before a coordinating conjunction to create this specific type of sentence.
What is a compound sentence?
A colon is needed here in the following sentence-
My coach always ended practice with the same reminder "Character is what you do when no one is watching."
What is after reminder?
My coach always ended practice with the same reminder: "Character is what you do when no one is watching."
Semicolons are used to separate items in a list if the items themselves already contain this type of punctuation, which might otherwise "trip up" the reader.
What are commas?
Words like "Wow," "Yikes," and "Terrific" fall into this category, used to express sudden feelings or excitement.
What is an interjection?
This is the type of quotation—a description of what was said rather than the exact words—that does not require quotation marks.
What is an indirect quotation?
Standard English requires commas to set off these types of words, such as "however," "therefore," or "wow."
What are transitions and interjections?
You should use a colon to introduce this, as seen in the example
Taylor Swift has written a few songs about John Mayer: “Dear John,” “Paper Doll,” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.”
What is a list?
The rain began to pour down in sheets the football players scrambled for the locker room.
A semicolon is needed after this word in this sentence.
What is after sheets?
These words indicate relationships in time, space, or location, such as "under," "beside," or "since."
What is a preposition?
According to the rules, these specific marks are used around a quotation that appears inside another quotation.
What are single quotation marks?
This is the term for a noun or noun phrase that sits next to another noun to rename or describe it, often set off by commas (e.g., "Mr. Wilson, my soccer coach...").
What is an appositive?
A colon can be used to introduce one of these, such as in the example
He ended with the immortal words of Neil Young: “Rock and Roll can never die.”
What is a quote?
The weather was horrible, so they stayed inside.
A semicolon is needed here in this sentence.
Where is nowhere?
Known by the acronym "FANBOYS," these words are used with a comma to join two related independent clauses.
What are coordinating conjunctions?
This is the correct placement of quotation marks in the following sentence:
My mother always told me Retrace your steps when you've lost something! and it has always helped Louisa said to me.
"My mother always told me 'Retrace your steps when you've lost something!' and it has always helped," Louisa said to me.
A comma should follow these types of phrases at the start of a sentence, such as "In the morning" or "After the movie."
What is an introductory phrase?
A colon is used to join two clauses when the second clause does one of these two things to the first.
What is emphasizes or illustrates?
Semicolons are specifically used to join two or more of these that are closely related to each other.
What are independent clauses?