An American University study found in 2007 that college students use sentence-ending punctuation marks only 39 percent of the time in texts and 45 percent of the time during instant messaging. That ...

The vital role punctuation marks play in giving meaning, direction and flow to any writing cannot be over emphasised. A carelessly placed comma, hyphen, semi-colon, full colon or quotation mark can ...

Punctuation is a set of specific marks or symbols that we used to express the meaning of our sentences clearly and to make the flow of the text smooth. It shows us where we need to pause, it separates ...

The following is the first of three excerpts from Keith Houston’s new book, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks. The orthographic world of ancient ...

“Semicolon usage in British English books has fallen by nearly 50% in the past two decades,” a report by the language-learning website Babbel proclaimed in May. Their findings had the desired effect.

For writers at work, punctuation can slip from a matter of convention to one of obsession. I just finished my poetry thesis last week, and I’m embarrassed to admit the number of times I changed ...

Not long ago, I mentioned in this space that a period or comma always comes before a closing quotation mark. For example: Beth used the word “covert,” not the word “clandestine.” I mentioned, too, ...