Basic Writing
5 of 5
In this lesson, you learned…
- Periods mean stop. Use them at the end of a sentence, after abbreviations, and inside ending quotation marks.
- Question marks are used only after direct questions. Sometimes, they are on the inside, and sometimes, they are on the outside of the ending quotation mark. This depends on whether or not the direct quote is a question.
- Exclamation points are used to show strong emotion in statements or commands. Sometimes, they are on the inside, and sometimes, they are on the outside of ending quotation marks. This depends on the sentence.
- Colons are used before a list of items, in hour/minute designations, and after the greeting of a business letter.
- Italics are used to express the titles of complete works.
- Quotation marks are used for direct quotes and titles of newspaper articles, poems, short stories, songs, and chapters of books.
