Punctuation Station
These FANBOYS hook up words and phrases and clauses.
What are conjunctions?
Do not use these to refer to teachers unless it’s part of a direct quotation.
What are courtesy titles? (Also acceptable: titles, Mr. & Ms., etc.)
This case should be used when using a student’s year in school as their title.
What is lowercase?
Take this important credential with you if you leave the classroom to go interview someone.
What is a Prowler pass?
This ‘speedy’ piece of punctuation is highly versatile — and it’s Ms. C-K’s favorite.
What is a dash?
The thing that should be taken out of the following phrase: “September 2nd, 2022.”
What is “nd”?
This style should be used in Prowler headlines: basically, only the first letter and proper nouns are capitalized.
What is downstyle?
Mrs. Thomas’s title, NOT the commonly misused homonym.
What is “Principal”? (“Principle” is not acceptable)
Use this punctuation to connect two clauses, but only when they’re both independent.
What is a semicolon?
In almost all cases, use this past-tense verb in an attribution tag.
What is “said”?
These shortenings of longer phrases do not require periods between the individual letters.
What are acronyms?
The name of a generic school subject shouldn’t be capitalized… unless it is this.
What is a language? (English, Spanish, etc.)
As long as the first clause before it is independent, pretty much anything can come after this ‘absorbing’ piece of punctuation.
What is a colon?
Don’t begin a sentence with it -- unless you want to have to spell the whole thing out!
What is a number or figure?
DOP is a shortening of this phrase, which refers to the release date of an issue of The Prowler.
What is date of publication?
This leading student organization is probably the only one that can be referred to by an acronym even on first reference.
What is SGA?
This error occurs when a comma is used to connect two independent clauses.
What is a comma splice?
In 2017, the AP Stylebook changed to allow this to be used as a singular pronoun.
What is they/them?
If you name someone who graduated from QO, put this after their name on the first reference.
What is their graduation year? (e.g. Sam Student '16)
The 7-letter singular version of “alumni.” (Hint: it’s Latin.)
What is alumnus?