Questions and Answers on Punctuation
Answer : An ellipsis is a series of periods that indicates missing words in a quote. If the ellipsis comes a the beginning of somewhere in the midst of the sentence, it consists of three periods. If the ellipsis comes at the end of the sentence, it consists of four periods, one of which closes the sentence.
Answer : Nonrestrictive commas set off information that is not vital to the meaning of the sentence.
Answer : The colon often means “following” or “as follows.”
Answer : The semicolon separates items in a series when one or more of those items contain internal punctuation.
Answer : The colon and the semicolon will go outside the closing quotes unless they are part of the quoted material.
Answer : Add a lone apostrophe: classes’.
Answer : No, the primary portion of the sentence should be punctuated as if the parenthetical material were not there.
Answer : There is a hyphen in the word re-formation, meaning “to form again,” to distinguish it form the word reformation, meaning “a change”.
Answer : No, periods always appear inside the closing quotes.
Answer : If the item is a sentence, it requires a period, question mark, or exclamation mark. If the item is a word or a phrase, it requires no punctuation.