Academic Writing -- Autumn semester 2005

   Handout 4

   English punctuation -- basic rules.

Spaces, Quotations, and Parentheses

   

   1. In general, put one space after punctuation.

   2. In general, put no spaces before punctuation, but always put a space between words.

   3. Exceptions.

               Put two spaces after colons and between sentences.

               Put no spaces after periods inside abbreviations.

               Put no space before or after an apostrophe.

               Put no space on the "inside" of quotation marks (often called "quotes").

               Put no space on the "inside" of parentheses.

   4. In general, put end-of-sentence punctuation inside quotation marks.

   Note: Direct quotations are not used as much in English as in Japanese.

   5. In general, put commas and other sentence punctuation outside of parentheses.

   6. Put a comma (plus a space) before and, but, or, and nor when they join two sentences.

   7. In general, if you use an adjective-plus-noun (or adverb-adjective) phrase to modify
   another noun the adjective and noun should be joined with a hyphen.

   8. The semicolon (;) is not used widely in English and probably should be avoided by
   non-native writers.

   9. Names of newspapers, books, movies, ships, magazines, journals, and poems are usually
   italicized or underlined.

   10. Ellipsis (...) is used to show that something has been omitted.

   11. For quotes within quotes, use single quotes.

  Examples

   1. One space after punctuation.

   If you click here, the disk will be erased.

   Mr. Tripp is always right.

   2. No space before punctuation.

   John, Mary, and I are going to try again next week.

   The train is going to be late, I think.

   3. Exceptions

   A computer consists of four main parts: a CPU, an input device, an output device, and a memory
   unit.

   University teachers generally have a Ph.D.

   It's said that John's homework was eaten by his dog.

   Many people confuse "affect" and "effect" in their writing.

   The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) has a new director.

   4. They asked, "Where are the horses?"

   She said, "Could you wait here a moment?"

   She asked if you could wait here a moment.

   5. He built a computer called ABC (for Atanasoff-Berry Computer), but it was never marketed.

   6. Newton discovered gravity, but Einstein discovered relativity.

   7. It was a well-known procedure.

   8. He used a two-part solution.

   9. Funding for the project was ended; however, by moving money from another budget they were
   able to complete their work.

   10. Columbus's ships were named the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

   Chomsky suggested that, "Language is a system that...can be described in an algebraic
   notation."

   11. He wrote in 1946 that, "The key word in digital computer is 'digital'."

  Exercise

   Each of the following sentences contains exactly two mistakes. Rewrite them, correcting the
   mistakes.

   1.      On Friday , we will have another chance .

   2.      It 's not necessary,but I will do it.

   3.      The movie,Full Speed, is coming soon.

   4.      It' s a well designed program.

   5.      IBM(International Business Machines ) was not present.

   6.      Clinton said,"How do you like my budget"?

   7.      The word "arbeit "is not English.

   8.      The New York Times called it "a giant mistake. "

   9.      The blue colored text is hypertext .

   10.    HTML (hypertext markup language)is used to link documents,but the server must be able
   to find the document.

   11.    Turing said,"Give me read-write head and a..tape long enough and I will compute the
   world."

   12.    There are many technical terms, for example,"RAM", "ROM," and "EPROM."

   13.    Three companies participated:Fujitsu,IBM, and NEC.

   14.    JIS ( Japan Industry Standard ) codes are used.

   15.    That ' s not the procedure we need.

   16.    They invited NEC,IBM,and Toshiba to the trade show.

   17.    It says that the third power of two is eight.Is that right?

   18.    Grace Murray Hopper, who developed the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), said
   that, " If anyone asked if we were accomplishing anything, we replied that we were
   'debugging"."

   19.    ENIAC was...the world's first fully electronic general-purpose (programmable) digital
   computer, although this claim, as well as the validity of the patents for ENIAC, was
   challenged in 1973 by John V. Atanasoff (b.1903,) a professor at Iowa State College.

   20.    Turing visited the United States in 1942 and apparently talked with John von Neuman
   (1903-1957) , a mathematician, but had little impact on the American development of the
   computer until after the war,at which time there was extensive American-English discussion on
   the subject of computation.