A Capital letters

• Capital letters (also called upper-case letters) are used:

to begin a sentence T hank you for your letter of 28 July.

for names of people J im, H elen, M r A rmstrong, M rs J ones

for names of organisations E uropean C ommunity, M inistry of F inance

for titles of books, etc As Jim Tucker said in ‘ M anaging C hange’

for names of places P aris, F rance, E urope

for calendar information M onday, M arch, N ew Y ear’s D ay

· In book and film titles, small words like and, a/the and prepositions do not usually have capitals, unless they are at the beginning.

His latest book is called ‘ I n the Heat of the Economic Night’.

· Some words can be written with capitals, or in lower case. These are:

seasons in S pring, in s pring

decades the N ineties, the n ineties

jobs She is a good s ales d irector (general use),

S ales D irector (job title)

compass points the e ast of Scotland (description), the Far E ast (place name)

B Full stop (.)

• Full stops are used at the end of sentences.

· Full stops are sometimes used in abbreviations to show that letters in a word are missing. In modern British English they are not used so often.

Prof. E. Taylor M.P e.g. i.e. etc.

C Comma (,)

• A comma in writing represents a brief pause in speech. When a sentence has several clauses, commas are placed between them to make the sentence easier to read.

We do a lot of business with Asia, and it’s an important market for us.

We do a lot of business with Asia, which is an important market for us.

But we use a full stop, not a comma, to separate complete sentences.

We do a lot of business with Asia. It’s an important market for us.

(NOT We do a lot of business with Asia, it’s an important market for us.)

· A comma is used in lists, except for the last two items where we use and.

This product is safe, hygienic, practical and cheap.

We can use a comma before and if the last two items in the list are long.

This product is safe, easy to maintain, and kind to the environment.

· Linking words at the beginning of a sentence are followed by a comma.

In fact, the Portuguese market is growing fast.

Linking words in the middle of a sentence have commas before and after.

The Portuguese market, on the other hand, is growing fast.

· Commas are used with non-defining relative clauses.

This product, which is the top of our range, retails at £250.

· A comma can introduce direct quotes.

A Lloyds agent said, ‘This will mean some very large claims.’

· When writing direct speech we use a comma before the actual words spoken. In reported speech commas are not used. Compare:

Your sales director said, ‘Yes, that might be possible.’

Your sales director said it might be possible.

· Study where we put a comma with large numbers:

260 1, 569 18, 500 127, 000 4,650, 000

Note that in some other languages a dot is used here. A dot in English represents a decimal point.

D Semi-colon (;)

• We can join two sentences with related meanings using a semi-colon.

We need better technology; better technology costs money.

• A semi-colon is also used to separate long items in a list. Notice the use of commas and semi-colons in this example:

Institutional investors include Nomura, the Japanese securities house; GEC of the US; and Charterhouse, the UK investment bank.

E Colon (:)

• A colon introduces items in a list.

The input selector has four positions: CD, DVD, tuner and auxiliary.

· A colon can introduce an explanation of the previous part of the sentence.

China is booming: output is up, profits are up, confidence is high.

· A colon is also used to introduce examples.

We’re entering a lot of new markets, eg: the Baltic states.

F Speech marks (‘ ’) (“ ”)

• Speech marks (also called quotation marks) are used when we write the actual words that someone says. Punctuation goes inside. They can be single or double.

‘ This share issue will supply the capital we need, ’ said Alan Jones of MSD. Alan Jones of MSD said, ‘ This share issue will supply the capital we need. ’

· Titles and headings of books, reports, articles, etc, are sometimes put inside single speech marks, and we put punctuation outside in this case.

I strongly recommend Jim Tucker’s new book ‘ Managing Change ’.

Book titles, etc, can also be put in italics rather than speech marks.

G Question mark (?) and exclamation mark (!)

• Question marks only occur after the question.

He asked, ‘What are the most important issues facing our company? ’

· Exclamation marks are used in informal writing, but are not considered appropriate in formal writing. They show surprise, pleasure, etc.

Guess what’s happened! I’ve just got promoted!

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