Research Papers and Punctuation

Many of us are busy finishing up research papers, dissertations, and other written documents as the school term ends. Learning several hundred pages of grammar and writing rules is no easy task, even if we have been doing it off and on for years. So, I thought I'd dedicate this blog to some of the common rules associated with major internal sentence punctuation. If you're like me, learning by example is the most useful, so I've provided a bullet list of properly punctuated sentence examples. Hope they help you with your writing.

These all are modified from examples included in H. Ramsey Fowler's The Little, Brown Handbook, third edition. This is a pretty old version of this book, which is now in its ninth edition, but many concepts of punctuation have not changed.

If you are interested, the publishers of The Little, Brown Handbook, ninth edition, Pearson Longman, have a Website that is a companion to the ninth edition. Here's the link:

http://wps.ablongman.com/long_fowler_lbh_9

• The car stopped, but no one got out.


• The car stopped; no one got out.


• The car stopped; however, no one got out.


• The car stopped; no one, however, got out.


• The car stopped; no one got out however.


• The car stopped, spun, rolled, and landed on its wheels; but no one got out.


• After the car stopped, no one got out.


• Suddenly, the car stopped. No one got out.


• The car that hit the truck went over the side of the road.


• Badly damaged, the car rolled to a stop.


• The car, which flipped three times, rolled to a stop.


• The car couldn't be salvaged: its body was crushed beyond repair.


• The car's body was crushed, ripped, and distorted--a total loss.


• Crushed, torn pieces of the car littered the highway.