by Nancy Tuten | Apr 6, 2020
The hyphen, the em dash, and the en dash are all horizontal marks of varying lengths. Each functions differently from the others. Below we define each mark, explain when to use them, and provide instructions for typing them on both PCs and Macs. (View our new...
by Nancy Tuten | Feb 29, 2020
An ellipsis consists of either three or four periods, or dots. A single dot is called an ellipsis point. The definition is pretty straightforward, but using ellipses can be tricky. Writers use ellipses for various reasons. An ellipsis can indicate the omission of...
by Nancy Tuten | Jan 15, 2020
Elsewhere on this site we have addressed two other issues involving capitalization: knowing when to capitalize people’s positions and job titles and recognizing when a noun is common, not proper, and therefore should not be capitalized. This article focuses on knowing...
by Nancy Tuten | Jan 7, 2020
Hardly a week goes by that we are not asked a question about vertical lists (often referred to as bulleted lists): When are bullets more appropriate than numbers or letters in a vertical list? What do we mean when we say that the items in a list must be parallel? How...
by Nancy Tuten | Nov 6, 2019
Our word processing software and enhanced keyboards can work magic, especially in regard to inserting characters and symbols that aren’t on our Roman alphabet keyboards. Lawyers and legal secretaries must type a section symbol in legal citations, whereas bankers...
by Nancy Tuten | Oct 13, 2019
When we refer to the title of a work, how do we know whether to use italics or quotation marks? Italics for Works That Stand Alone With some exceptions, most style books tell us to use italics when we write the title of a work that stands alone as a single entity....
