|
In this lecture you will learn:
•Colons
•Semicolons
•Question Marks
•Exclamation Marks
•Apostrophes
•Quotation marks
•Hyphens
•Dashes
•Parentheses
•Brackets
Colons:
Use colons
for the following purposes:
••to introduce and emphasize lists, quotations and
explanations and certain appositional
elements (see Layout)
•to express ratios
••to separate numbers signifying different nouns, such as in
separating units of time or
elements in a bibliographic citation•to separate titles from
subtitles
• To set off
and emphasize lists–The market
for photovoltaic power systems includes the
following items: intrusion alarms, flood monitors,
calculators, and telephone call boxes.
OR
•The market for photovoltaic power systems includes the
following items:
–intrusion alarms
–flood monitors
–calculators
–telephone call boxes
Semicolons:
•Use
semicolons to join two independent clauses or to separate parts of a
sentence
that have commas in them.
•To Join Two
Independent Clauses
–The system
has three beam launchers; two are in the two-tube combiner, and one is
in the OP receiver.
•To Separate
Sentence Elements with Commas
–Italicize titles of journals, books, newsletters, and
manuals; letters, words, terms, and
equation symbols; foreign words; and names of specific
vessels.
Question Marks:
•Use a question mark to end an interrogative sentence.
•Have past efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine been based on
the wrong approach ?
•Use a question mark to change a declarative or imperative
sentence into a question.
•Their testing of the system was exhaustive ?
[declarative changed to
interrogative] Start
production on Friday ?
[imperative changed to
interrogative]
•When a directive or a command is phrased as a question, a
question mark is optional.
Exclamation Points:
•In technical and scientific writing, use exclamation points
only to end warning or caution
statements or as specialized scientific notation.
•For other purposes, use a period or question mark.
Apostrophes:
•Use apostrophes to form the possessive case of nouns and
indefinite pronouns, and
contractions.
•Optionally, apostrophes may also be used in the plurals of
abbreviations and numbers.
•Form the possessive of singular nouns and indefinite
pronouns and of plural nouns that do
not end in
-s by adding-'s.
Quotation Marks:
•Unless the documentation style you are following specifies
otherwise, use quotation marks
1.to enclose the names of articles, short reports, and other
brief documents cited in your
document or
2.to indicate direct quotations of speech or excerpts from
other documents.
•Do not put quotation marks around a quotation in block form
(that is, indented to set it off
from the main text).
•Avoid using quotation marks for emphasis.
••To Enclose
the Names of Articles, Short Reports, and Other Brief Documents
–The source of the design information is the 1982 article"
Boundary Layer Development on
Turbine Airfoil Suction Surfaces," which appeared in the
Journal of Engineering for
Power.
Hyphens:
•Use hyphens to link
–certain prefixes, suffixes, letters, and numbers with nouns
–compound nouns
–compound modifiers
–spelled-out numbers
•Also use hyphens for the following purposes:
–to clarify the meaning of certain words
–to divide words
–to express
to or
through
between two letters or numbers
–for specialized scientific notation
•To Link
Certain Prefixes, Suffixes, Letters, and Numbers with Nouns
–Use hyphens to connect certain prefixes to
nouns.
In most scientific and technical styles,
the following prefixes are usually followed by a hyphen:
•all-
•ex-
•half-
•quasi-
•self-
•hex-
•To Link Compound Nouns
To Link Compound Modifiers
To Link Spelled-Out Numbers
•Specialized
Uses
–Use a hyphen in the following circumstances:
–To represent single bonds in chemical formulas:
•(CH3)2-CH-CH2-CH(NH2)-OH
–Between the spelled-out name of a chemical element and the
mass number of the specific
isotope:
•carbon-14
–Between sequences of amino acids:
•Asp-His-Lys
Dashes:
•Use dashes--sparingly--to indicate abrupt shifts in thought
and to set off or emphasize
appositional or parenthetical elements or interjections. In
most cases, use commas or
parentheses instead.
•Although we have made these comments with specific
reference to water--only because of
our familiarity with water--all pure substances exhibit the
same behavior.
•In typewritten documents, use two hyphens (--) with no
spaces between or around them to
form a dash.
Parentheses:
•Use parentheses to enclose qualifying detail that is of
secondary importance to the main
discussion.
•Use parentheses sparingly within sentences; commas often do
the job better.
•Parentheses can also be used to enclose one or more entire
sentences that add relevant
but not essential detail to the main discussion.
Brackets:
•Use brackets to set off an explanatory reference, your own
comments, or corrections within
material you are quoting.
–According to Smith, "Proton energy levels [in the
accelerator] are consistently higher than
expected.”
–[These comments were made before Brodier became aware of
Lightman's experiments.]
•Unless the documentation style you are following specifies
otherwise, use the Latin term
sic
in brackets to indicate that material in a quotation is
incorrect.
–Freedman stated, "Various Indo-European languages such as
Rumanian, Hindi, Hungarian
[ sic],
and Serbian exhibit similar morphological patterns." [Hungarian is not an
Indo-
European language.]
•Use brackets to enclose parenthetical material that is
within material already in
parentheses.
–The first extant cosmological theories were developed by
the early Babylonians and
Greeks. (See Alan Lightman,
Ancient Light
[Cambridge: Harvard University Press],
pp.5-9.)
•Use brackets to indicate the isotope of a specific
chemical.
–[14C]urea
|