Punctuation

1     Ellipsis

If there are words on both sides of the ellipsis, add a space on both sides. Otherwise, no space is needed. Don't put a 4th dot at the end of sentences.

• Good "Well, you know ... it's kind of complicated..."
• Good "...I guess that's all."
• Avoid "No, no way...Not at all." (have a space either side of the ellipsis)
• Avoid "Nah, that's not right...." (no 4th dot needed)
• Avoid "Nah, that's not right.."

2     Key terms

Specialist terms that are unique to a subject are enclosed in single quotation marks. In such cases, periods and commas go outside the single-quote marks.

However, we often also enclose terms in double quotes (due to complications with our punctuation parser):

• Good Sartre's treatment of 'being' is described in his book.
• Good Sartre's treatment of "being" is described in his book.

3     Scare quotes

Quite often scare quotes are used to express irony or sarcasm:

• Good The Serbs are closing in on the "safe haven" of Goražde.

Was this page helpful?