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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
With the possible exception of the Oxford/Harvard/serial comma, very few usage issues elicit responses as passionate as the topic of punctuating with quotation marks. American vs. British Conventions If I were in charge of writing the rules about the use of quotation...
